


The God Of Broken Things

by hujwernoo



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Necromancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 72,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24770884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hujwernoo/pseuds/hujwernoo
Summary: Klaus is thirteen years old and he is not allowed to leave his room.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Dave & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 1371
Kudos: 1250
Collections: Dark Fics and Horror Stories, Klaus Hargreeves, The Best of Klaus





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to my newest story! As promised, Klaus has necromancy in this one. There is a shocking lack of fics where Klaus has necromancy. I mean, come on, guys. We're missing such a big opportunity.
> 
> This fic will have fifteen chapters, as indicated above, and it is NOT part of a series. Shocking, I know. I have the entire thing written, and _actually_ most of the chapters after this one are over 5,000 words. You're welcome. I'll post every two days.
> 
> And so, without further ado, here is chapter one!

Klaus carefully presses his back against the wall of his room. He squints at the opposite wall.

He takes his first step forward, large but not _very_ large. His leg knows exactly how far to swing out. He thinks it’s a foot and a half, or maybe two feet? He’s not sure. But he does know instinctively how far to step.

Then another. One, two, three _four,_ five, six, seven.

Seven steps, just like always.

That makes him happy. At least, he thinks it does. He doesn’t know if he can actually be happy any more, if he ever was in the first place, but he likes the fact that his room is seven steps long. It makes him think of his siblings. And if _anything_ ever made him happy, in his whole entire life, it would be his siblings.

Klaus goes and sits down on the floor, under his wall with his drawings on it. Well, all of the walls have drawings on them. It makes the room nicer, lets him do something other than stare blankly at bare walls all day. He’d probably go crazy if he had to do that, since he’s stuck in his room for the forseeable future. So he drew on the walls, and he really likes how it turned out. Ben says the drawings are nice, too, so he’s not just flattering himself.

He’s running out of both space and drawing material, though, so he hasn’t drawn anything in a while. Maybe he should, but he doesn’t want to paint over anything he already has down. He knows he isn’t a _great_ artist, but then, what thirteen-year-old is? He loves everything he’s drawn, and doesn’t want to lose any of it.

Speaking of losing things, shouldn’t Ben be back by now? He _said_ he’d only be a minute. Klaus forgets what he went to check on, but Klaus is sure his brother will talk all about it once he comes back (Klaus feels a brief pang that he can’t just go and _find_ Ben. Stupid Dad). When they were really little Klaus always thought Ben hated talking, but now he realizes Ben’s shyness outweighed the fact that he has a _lot_ of opinions. Some of them Klaus doesn’t care about all that much, but he listens anyways. Ben is his best friend, he can do that much.

His best friend is _late,_ though. Klaus huffs and dramatically sprawls across the floor of his room. Ugh, Ben should definitely be back by now. He probably got distracted by a _book_ or something. What sort of teenager likes books?

Klaus picks himself up off the floor and goes over to his stash of playing pieces. Well, he calls them that. They’re actually a small pile of bones. But that’s his _power,_ isn’t it, playing with dead things, so he might as well live up to it.

Counting them out reveals the same number as always, thirty. An entire handful - _arm_ ful, actually. Good. He doesn’t think he _can_ lose any, but if he does he wants to know right away. He sets the larger ones aside and decides to play dollbones to pass the time until Ben comes back.

Dollbones can only be played by him, because in order to play it you have to be able to control the pieces with your mind, which only he can do. Dad calls it necromancy, which sort of sounds like magic. Klaus likes having necromancy. It makes him sound like a wizard.

Which is what he pretends when he’s playing dollbones. Klaus grins as he assembles the bones into a tiny person. It’s unsteady on its two little bone feet, but Klaus has experience using his power to make it not fall down. Horses are much easier, but they need more bones to make and he only has so many.

He has enough bones to make another tiny bone person, but not any more than that. Which is alright, because he still has enough bones left over that the two little people can encounter various obstacles while on their quest across the room.

Klaus, of course, is the evil wizard using Dark Magic to stop them. He throws tons of stuff in front of them to stop them from reaching the drawing of the castle on the far wall, but they eventually reach it.

Quest over and done with, Klaus regards the two figures. He idly disassembles them and thinks about what he wants to play next.

Unbidden, his mind turns to the seven steps he took across the room earlier. He pauses, and looks down at the smooth-worn bones in his hand.

Necromancy has always come easier than the - ghost stuff. Ghosts are loud and angry and do what they want, no matter what he says. He doesn’t have the faintest idea how to control ghosts, no matter how many times he went to - special training.

(Special training is done now. He never has to do it again, Dad said so. So - why does he keep remembering it? He should just try and put it out of his mind. It’s never going to happen again. It’s _not._ )

Necromancy, on the other hand (hah!) is easy. Easy as breathing. Dad says that it first happened when he was three and they had chicken for dinner and Klaus made it dance on the table. They didn’t even _know_ about the ghosts until a couple years later.

Dead things are just - obviously _available_ to him. Klaus has tried to describe it for Dad, because Dad wants to know all about it, of course, and the best analogy that he can think of is that dead things are sort of like air. Not in the sense that Klaus _needs_ them, because he doesn’t _think_ he does, but the way air is just - always there. Of course it’s always there, and of course it’s _yours._ Of course you can take it for yourself, that’s the way the world _works._ If Klaus wants to take control of a dead thing, make it move in ways it shouldn’t, then of course he can do it.

Easy as breathing.

Klaus knows - he knows his siblings don’t like it. They think it’s creepy, or at least they did the last time the subject came up. And he _guesses_ seeing corpses and bones moving around on their own might be kind of scary if you don’t know what’s going on.

They should know he wouldn’t hurt them, though. He might have annoyed them once or twice by making dead animals follow them around and copy their every move (except Five, who teleported away, the cheater), but Mom always took the bodies away because it was a ‘health hazard.’ Hmph.

He wouldn’t ever _hurt_ them, though. Duh. They’re his siblings and he loves them and all that mushy stuff. It was _awful_ when Five ran away - none of them realized it until the next day, and by then….well, poof.

He’s not dead, though. Klaus knows that. He knows it better than his own name. On top of the fact that out of all of them _he would know,_ Dad was - he was very - he -

\- the room is kind of spinny for a moment -

But Klaus rights himself and takes a deep breath and feels his lungs expand and shrink, expand and shrink. The room is steady again.

Dad was _very_ thorough in making sure Five wasn’t dead. That’s sort of, indirectly, the reason why Klaus can’t leave his room now.

So. Klaus knows Five is still out there somewhere. Probably he time-traveled, like he always wanted to do. Klaus wishes he would come back, but he doesn’t know if Five can. Powers can be pretty tricky sometimes. Even Klaus’ necromancy can dish out a few surprises.

Which brings him back on topic - he wouldn’t ever _hurt_ his siblings with his necromancy. Okay, it’s creepy. Fine. But it’s - it’s _part_ of him (more like all of him, these days). All of _their_ powers are free of blood and rot and death and messy theological implications, so it’s easier for them to consider their powers good powers. He got stuck with the worst powers ever, but he didn’t _ask_ for them. And however much he hates the ghosts (and the necromancy too, sometimes, when the days stretch out so long and he feels so so lonely), it’s not something he can just get rid of.

His siblings don’t have much of an opinion on the ghosts that he knows of, but then he never really talks about the ghosts. They _really_ don’t like the necromancy, though - except Ben, Ben is okay with it. He used to not be, but he’s softened a lot, these past few years. Klaus is pretty sure his brother draws parallels between the Horror and his necromancy. It’s not a perfect match, but it’s close enough. Klaus is just happy to have someone on his side. He’s just happy to have anyone at all.

Klaus blinks and tries not to remember the last conversation he had with his other siblings - more of an argument, really. He tries not to remember the way they looked at him, at how they recoiled when he said the wrong thing, at how they accused him of - of -

_“And if you do summon Five, what then?” Luther says, his arms crossed, glaring at Klaus. Luther looks close to crying himself, but he won’t. He never cries. “If Five really is dead -”_

_“Don’t say that!” Vanya says, looking upset._

_“He’s either dead or he l- **left** us, Vanya,” Diego says. Vanya bites her lip and looks horribly uncertain._

_“He’s not dead,” Klaus mumbles. His fingers dance over his arm and dig deep into the crook of his elbow, nails sinking in. It’s - grounding._

_“If he **is** dead, though,” Luther says, glaring at Klaus again. “You’ll eventually summon him. And if you do - what are you going to do then?”_

_“What do you mean?” Ben says, looking confused. Klaus is glad he said it, because his own tongue isn’t cooperating at the moment._

_“You know what I mean,” Luther snaps._

_They all look at each other, and Klaus is glad that he’s not the only one looking confused. He shakes his head._

_Allison steps forward and crosses her arms just like Luther. She presses her lips together and looks at Klaus. “Look,” she says. “I don’t know if you would get the chance, but if Five **is** dead, and you find out where his - his body is, I think you should promise not to - **do** anything to it.”_

_The words - the words don’t make sense for a bare instant, and then they hit him like one of Luther’s punches, straight to the gut._

_**“What?”** Klaus says, his arms falling limp. He stares at Allison and Luther._

_“Oh god” he hears Vanya say, and Diego sucks in a deep breath. Ben looks stunned._

_“Just promise not to do anything.” Luther says. He looks uncomfortable, but firm. “Nothing like - you know.”_

_“Like what you do,” Allison says helpfully._

_“I -” Klaus says, staring at them. “I - what - why - **why would I do that?** ”_

_“I don’t know, why do you do that at all?” Luther rolls his eyes._

_Something ugly bubbles up in Klaus’ chest._

_“I don’t think he’d - do that to **Five,** ” Vanya says, looking between them with wide eyes._

_“Of **course** I wouldn’t!” Klaus shouts. “But it’s my **power!** Of course I’m going to use it! Deal with it already, because it’s been ten years and **none** of you have gotten over yourselves!”_

_“You play with dead stuff,” Diego says, wrinkling his nose. “That’s always going to be gross, Klaus.”_

_Klaus flinches back, and -_

_And they’re all either pointedly looking at him, or pointedly looking away, and none of them are disagreeing, and Klaus has heard that before but suddenly it’s so much worse this time, and the room is spinning and he can’t get enough air in his lungs. He takes a step back, and then another, and then Diego is stepping forward and Klaus knows he **can’t** stand to hear whatever his brother is going to say next and he turns and runs out of the room._

_He races down the hallway, turns, and runs down another, and he might hear footsteps behind him but he pours on the speed and runs **faster** and the sound fades away and all he can hear is his heartbeat thundering in his ears and he turns another corner -_

_And he just barely pulls up in time to avoid crashing into his father._

_Dad looks down at him, expression even more severe than normal, and Klaus’ breath catches in his throat._

_“Number Four,” Dad says crisply, disapproval in his eyes. “I was looking for you. Come along, you will be attempting to summon Number Five again.”_

_“But he’s not dead,” Klaus says, voice cracking, head spinning, **no, no, please not again, no.**_

_Dad’s eyes grow colder, and Klaus shrinks back, heart fluttering in fear. “I have not determined that to my satisfaction,” Dad says. “Now, no more attempts to weasel out, Number Four. **Come along.** ”_

_All he can do is obey. And as he follows Dad down the hallway, Klaus can’t help but wonder if being dead would actually be so bad._

Klaus snaps out of the memory.

He looks around his room, and swallows. He sits down on the floor and brings his knees up to his chest. He tries breathing again. It doesn’t particularly help, but it stops him from getting lost in memories again.

Since then, Klaus has wondered if that’s what his siblings have always thought of him. He loves them, of course he does, but - do they love him?

Ben does. He apologized, over and over, for not speaking up during the meeting. Klaus forgave him, because he could hardly not, but the others….he doesn’t know about the others. He wants to see them again, but he’s scared. Scared they’ll still think that about him, that he’s creepy and gross and wrong just because of who - _what_ he is.

He just doesn’t know.

Klaus sighs, and picks up his playing pieces again. He doesn’t particularly want to play dollbones again. Maybe tenbones? Or callbones, once Ben gets back. Klaus is very proud that he managed to invent a game that includes both of them, instead of just him. He’s invented several games for the two of them, actually, and Ben seems to really like playing. It’s - nice. Having someone to play with. Klaus can get pretty lonely sometimes.

Callbones, Klaus decides with a nod. He’ll set up the pieces for callbones. And then when Ben gets back they can play that.

He sets up the pieces - the twelve smallest ones and two larger ones. Ben will often accuse Klaus of cheating but he’s not, Ben is just a sore loser. So there.

Counting them again reveals yes, twelve bones. Klaus sets the others aside in a tidy pile. He always keeps his room tidy, even if there’s not much _to_ keep tidy. It’s something to do, at least, and he feels better if his room looks nice. His Academy jacket is crumpled over to the side, but he hates that. Never wears it if he can help it. It’s right where it should be.

There’s movement by the door, and Klaus looks up as Ben comes in.

“There you are,” Klaus says. “You’re late. Did something happen?”

Ben looks at him with wide eyes. “You - could say that,” he says.

Klaus blinks, and straightens up. Ben looks - upset. Huh.

“Is something wrong?” Klaus asks.

Ben looks at him, and opens and closes his mouth. Then, carefully, he kneels down next to Klaus.

“Klaus,” he says. He pauses, and moves his jaw some.

“What is it?” Klaus says. He feels confused. Ben hardly ever hesitates to bring back news.

“Klaus…. Dad is dead.”

Klaus blinks. “Huh?”

“Dad’s dead,” Ben says slowly. “He - he died last night, and I think - I dismissed everything that he’s been doing the last couple days, adjusting Mom and talking to Pogo and everything, but now I think - I think he killed himself.”

Klaus blinks again.

Slowly, he looks around his room.

At the clothes in the corner, tattered and worn.

The bones next to him, thirty in all.

The drawings on the walls, done all in red.

Klaus curls his one remaining arm around himself, and blinks at Ben from his only eye. Underneath his fingers, he imagines he can almost feel the heartbeat he used to have, instead of cold dead flesh.

“Can I come out of the basement now?” he asks his ghostly brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, yes, did I forget to mention that part of the premise?
> 
> ;) Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your very gratifying response to the first chapter! And I did promise some answers in this one, so here you go!
> 
> Trigger warnings at the end (it's a bit of a list).

Diego looks up at the Academy and feels the simultaneous urge to spit, scream, and run the _fuck_ away in the opposite direction, as fast as he can.

Not like that’d be a new reaction for this family.

But he doesn’t. Because as much as he fucking hates this place, Mom is in there.

Oh, and the rest of his family.

Yeah, really looking forward to _that._

Diego grimaces and runs a hand through his hair. The Academy looms above him, so _fucking_ large. Ready and waiting to swallow him whole, like it did his whole childhood.

But. Well. Diego has to do this. For closure, if nothing else. The autopsy report for Dad is in his pocket (and wasn’t _that_ a shock, seeing that picture of Dad laid out on a metal table, dead as a doornail. Diego always thought the old bastard was immortal, living off an endless well of spite and cruelty), and hopefully once this funeral is over and done with Diego will finally be able to sleep without nightmares.

And seeing Mom again will make the whole thing worth it.

That thought, more than anything, is what spurs Diego to finally push open the door and go inside. The foyer is just like he remembers it, gloomy and depressing.

Right. Finding Mom is first priority. If Diego comes across any of his siblings before her he doesn’t know if his resolve can hold up.

(The fleeting thought that there _is_ one - or two - siblings he might be okay with running into occurs to him. He pushes it away, because he doesn’t want to get his hopes up. They’re gone, they’re both _gone._ Five is likely lost somewhere in the timestream, and Klaus….

Well Klaus isn’t coming. Diego is pretty damn sure about that.)

So Diego goes looking for Mom.

It’s not all that hard to find her, actually. She’s off in one of the side rooms. Diego just has to turn his head a little, and - she’s there.

He stops, frozen stock-still at the sight of her. There’s an obstruction in his throat all of a sudden.

“M-” he says. “M - Mo -”

He’s stuttering. He hasn’t stuttered in years, and he feels the familiar sense of shame-anger-embarrassment rise inside him. Diego grits his teeth and stops trying to talk instead of powering through.

Mom hasn’t noticed him yet. She’s standing in the middle of the room, staring at the portraits over the mantel.

Diego takes in a deep breath, and goes to stand next to her.

When she notices him, her eyes light up, and oh, god, suddenly Diego is nothing more than a little kid in knee socks again.

“Diego!” Mom says, looking utterly delighted. “Oh, you’re here! How are you?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Diego says softly, the words finally cooperating. She looks just like he remembers her - well, of course, but Diego wondered often over the years whether Dad decided to just _change_ her on a whim, if he made her hair a different color or gave her a different face or (and this has featured in more than a few of his nightmares) if he decided to get rid of her altogether and make a newer, ‘better’ model.

But none of that has happened. Mom is right here, right in front of him, and now that the old bastard is _finally_ dead, there’s nothing preventing Diego from coming to see her as often as he wants. The thought is almost dizzying.

Mom reaches up and puts a hand on his face. Diego stops breathing, because - god, all of a sudden he realizes with exquisite clarity how much he _missed_ that. Missed her gentle words and motherly touches, her home cooking and cheery bustle, her sheer _warmth_ that should be impossible for a robot to achieve.

Anyone who thinks she isn’t a real person is a fucking moron, in his opinion.

“I’m glad,” Mom says, smiling.

“Me too,” Diego says quietly.

There’s a spark of understanding in her eyes that probably means she knows exactly what he’s talking about. She always does. Diego used to think that was a _her_ thing, but after meeting Eudora’s family, he’s pretty sure it’s actually just a _mother_ thing. It’s mystifying and strange, but Diego knows he’ll probably never understand it.

Then she looks back up at the portraits, and her face shades into something more somber. “Do you think your brothers will be here soon?”

The question hits like a punch to the gut, and Diego can’t help the wince that crosses his face.

“I….” he says. Against his will, he looks at the portraits. Five stares down at him, wearing the stupidest (but mostly accurate) expression Diego has ever seen on him. Next to him, Klaus looks almost as ridiculous, considering the way the artist seemed to be trying to go for ‘otherworldly’ and accidentally hit ‘confused.’

It’s the right expression, though. Diego just has to close his eyes to remember the last time he saw his brother, at that _stupid_ fucking family meeting, and Klaus had the same expression then, when Luther and Allison made their ridiculous demand. Of course, the _actual_ last expression Diego ever saw Klaus make was one of gutwrenching betrayal, but that’s already etched into Diego’s brain, he doesn’t need to have it staring down at him from over the fireplace.

“I don’t think they will, Mom,” Diego manages to say.

“Oh,” Mom says, her expression dimming. Diego hates when that happens.

Diego swallows. “Come on,” he says, taking her arm. “Why don’t you sit down?” He knows she doesn’t get tired of standing the way humans do, but she admitted once that she finds sitting down to be ‘restful.’ Diego isn’t sure how to categorize her more esoteric internal experiences, but that one seems pretty straightforward.

Mom gladly sits down, and Diego’s fingers itch for a drink. He’s not usually much of a drinker, but he indulges sometimes, when he’s feeling particularly sorry for himself. And if there’s any time to have some alcohol, it’s now.

He’s not going to pour himself too much, though, because he is _not_ wasting the first meeting he’s had with his mother in over a decade. He goes over to the bar, after squeezing Mom’s shoulder one last time.

The brands at the bar are, of course, hideously expensive. Diego wonders if he might be able to sneak away a few bottles - either to drink himself or throw into the river, he can’t quite decide.

There’s the sound of the front door opening, and Diego’s fingers still.

Well. Unless Pogo went out ( _somewhat_ unlikely), that’s got to be one of his siblings. Either Allison or Vanya, since Diego can’t see Luther leaving the house after coming down from the moon. Their Fearless Leader probably _missed_ this place.

Sure enough, feminine voices start talking a few seconds later. Diego can’t make out the words, but that’s definitely his sisters.

Suddenly, even the lure of talking to Mom again can’t outweigh the fact that Vanya and Allison are both _here,_ just a few dozen feet away. He can’t stand being so close to them. He needs to get away.

Diego strides out into the front hall and tosses out a “Glad to see you two getting along. You have so much in common now.”

“Really?” Allisons says tightly. Even without looking at her, he knows her expression is pinched and frustrated. “You’re really going to do this today?”

He sets his jaw as he reaches the stairs and goes up. “I think today’s the _perfect_ day to do this.”

He’s up the stairs before he can hear her response, if any. He really, really hopes she doesn’t have one. If she did, he might just have to punch her in the face.

Even though he knows it won’t make him feel better (will probably make him feel worse, in fact), Diego decides to go to Dad’s room. It is, after all, the place he’ll most likely find Luther, and he has an autopsy report to deliver. Luther better appreciate this; it’s probably the only concession Diego is going to make for him actually _grieving_ the man’s death.

Sure enough, Luther is in Dad’s room (which must be like Christmas for him; they were never allowed in here). It looks like he’s - inspecting the windows, yep.

“I can save you some time,” Diego says, the first sentence he’s said to Luther in over a decade. “They’re all locked. No forced entry. No sign of a struggle, nothing out of the ordinary….”

Diego trails off when he gets closer to his (remaining) brother. Luther is….huge. Wow. Diego always wondered why Dad didn’t shove him in front of a camera to tout the publicity of the last Academy member going into space, and apparently he has his answer now. Or maybe this is an effect of living in low gravity for four years, Diego wouldn’t know.

But he hasn’t been interested in Luther’s life since they lost two brothers in the span of two months and this fucker refused to admit any culpability, so Diego doesn’t comment on it. Ben was always the peacekeeper, and when he died….well, there went any chance of Diego ever being able to talk to his last brother.

“What do you want?” Luther says flatly.

Diego wordlessly hands over the autopsy report.

Luther unfolds it, and lingers over the photo. He looks up at Diego. “What is this?”

“Autopsy report,” Diego says shortly, rolling his eyes. “I stole it. And surprise surprise, Dad’s death was normal. Boring old heart failure. You don’t need to look for some sort of evidence otherwise, Luther.”

Luther’s face twitches, and even if Diego is a decade out of date at reading him it looks like Luther hasn’t changed a bit. That’s the face he makes when he thinks his ‘authority’ is being undermined, that expression of frustration and anger and childish incomprehension. It’s even sadder to see it on an adult.

“Pogo says he couldn’t find Dad’s monocle,” is what Luther eventually ends up saying.

“So?” Diego says, already itching to leave the room. Christ, forty seconds after twelve years and he already can’t wait to never speak to Luther again.

“ _So_ can you think of a single time you ever saw Dad and he _wasn’t_ wearing that monocle? No. Which means someone took it. Which means there’s a _chance_ he might not have been alone when he died.”

Diego smiles without any warmth. “You know, it’d have been nice to see that investigative spirit back when we were thirteen.”

Predictably, Luther glares at him. “This is a little different than that, Diego.”

“Uh-huh,” Diego says. He saunters towards the door. “Sure is. This time, there’s no one to blame.”

He’s gone before Luther says anything else, and he breathes in deeply, trying to quell the _itch_ in his blood, calling for him to fight and punch and _hurt_ something. God, why did he even come here today? He could have just as easily skipped the funeral and come to see Mom tomorrow. Luther would still be here (now that he’s back on planet Earth, he probably won’t leave the Academy until he dies), but Diego wouldn’t have to _interact_ with him, or their sisters.

There was a time when they were actually a family, when the idea of talking to any of them didn’t make rage rise in Diego’s throat. That was before a full half his siblings ~~died~~ left, though. Before they were more holes than family, before guilt and anger clogged up any attempts to repair themselves, let alone each other.

They might have been able to survive Five leaving. Maybe. Diego doesn’t know, because honestly the thought that their family could power through the loss of even one of them sounds vaguely….disloyal, or something. Like it wouldn’t matter that he left. And he definitely _left_ as opposed to dying - at least, they know he didn’t die in the first month, and that’s good enough for Diego. Five always was a sneaky bastard, and as much as Diego hates to admit it, he’s probably the one who could survive best on his own (if not exactly legally, but in Diego’s experience laws are really more like guidelines). So whether he got lost in the timestream or just decided to never come back, Diego is as sure as he can be that Five is okay. With that knowledge, they might have been able to recover.

When Klaus ran away, though, it became pretty clear they weren’t going to be able to.

The worst part of it (although all the parts are the worst parts, honestly) is that they could have stopped him. Easily. Klaus wasn’t like Five, stubborn to the end and incapable of listening to anyone other than himself. If Dad himself couldn’t stop Five from running, none of them had a chance.

Klaus, though? God, half the reason he ran was their fault. As much as Diego can’t bring himself to say it out loud, he knows he’s just as much to blame as Luther and Allison for driving Klaus away. Every barb, every flinch, every time he called Klaus’ powers creepy and gross to Klaus’ _face_ \- it all added up over the years. And maybe they are, maybe Diego still can’t repress a shudder when he remembers the way Klaus’ eyes would light up as he played around with _rotting animal carcasses,_ but they crossed a fucking line when they accused Klaus of potentially desecrating their brother’s corpse. A corpse they didn’t even have proof existed, no less.

That, on top of whatever Dad put him through to find out if Five was dead (because yeah, Luther was totally fucking oblivious and Allison was too self-centered to see it and Vanya hardly ever hung out with them, but Diego and Ben damn well noticed that Dad was pushing Klaus way too hard. Diego _still_ doesn’t know what the fuck Dad did. He’s not sure he wants to), led to Klaus just - snapping, as far as Diego knows. He ran away after the meeting, and no one’s seen him since.

Diego doesn’t like thinking about it, but he’s pretty sure Klaus is dead. Five - Five is resourceful, and ruthless, and won’t hesitate to do what he needs to survive. But Klaus? Klaus, despite his powers, was always the softest of them if you didn’t count Vanya. Diego can’t imagine him hurting anyone, except possibly himself. As much as Diego _hates_ it, he has to face the facts, and the fact is that Klaus probably couldn’t survive on his own at thirteen.

Maybe he’s keeping Ben company. The thought is almost nice, except for how it’s absolutely not. Ben’s death was the final straw in their familial relationship they all knew by then was measured in months. They _might_ have preferred to have it broken in a less traumatic form, but hey, the important thing is that the message was unambiguously conveyed.

Diego grits his teeth, and continues walking through the house. He wants to talk to Mom again. No doubt Luther is going to try and call a family meeting soon enough, and Diego knows he’s not going to be able to hold back from commenting on just how much of a family they _aren’t._

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Pogo is old, and has many regrets.

He is not as old as many humans. He will never reach an age humans consider to be ‘old,’ in fact. Sir Hargreeves has often called Pogo his best creation, but even he cannot extend a chimpanzee’s natural lifespan. Pogo is very nearly forty years old now, and he knows he will not live for many more.

He would like to say that he has lived those years well. Or at least as well as he could.

When he was a few months away from turning ten - just a few short years away from adulthood - Sir Hargreeves brought back seven extraordinary babies from around the globe. He never said so, but Pogo gets the feeling he may have _known_ about the babies before they were born. Which should have been impossible, but then again Sir Hargreeves is capable of many impossible things. Case in point: Pogo himself.

The children were fascinating, of course. Pogo had never seen human children - or any kind of children at all - before, and their powers just made the whole thing that much more extraordinary. Pogo knows his appearance disconcerted the nannies, but on the whole they were quite patient with his curiosity. He blushes to consider the lack of decorum he acted with back then, but he was still an adolescent, after all.

In a way, Number Seven’s containment and subsequent suppression of her powers forced him to grow up metaphorically as well as literally. Newly adult, and able to see just how unfair the world really was. And still is.

The children (because they will always be children to him, those tiny squirming infants in their cribs, no more aware of the state of the world than Pogo was before Sir Hargreeves’ uplifting) are extraordinary. All of them. But they are also very, very dangerous, and very, very fragile. It is a terrifying combination.

Pogo may not like what Sir Hargreeves has to do to protect the world, but he understands the necessity. That is one of his regrets, that understanding.

And now, with the house shaking and blue light strobing in through the windows, he thinks he may have another one added to his pile very soon.

The meeting between the (remaining) children went badly, Pogo knows that much. He isn’t entirely sure _how_ badly, since he hasn’t had a chance to review the tapes yet, but from the way they stormed out of the parlor there isn’t much chance of them spontaneously deciding to band together to investigate Sir Hargreeves’ death.

That is alright. That’s what Pogo is here for. He can give his friend this one last thing, and ensure he did not die in vain.

However, the sudden - earthquake? - was rather unforseen. It is an unpleasant shock that he isn’t sure is good for his heart.

That is, until he looks out the window into the courtyard, and sees young Number Five standing there. Then Pogo _knows_ it isn’t good for his heart.

Well. Pogo’s mind shakes itself out of its stunned stupor as Number Five heads inside, his adult siblings trailing behind him. Well, that is - a surprise.

Not as much as it could be, of course. Pogo knows very well that Master Five was never dead. And Sir Hargreeves was always so sure, so _certain,_ that he would return, that Pogo couldn’t help but imagine he _must_ have known, somehow. Had some sort of knowledge beyond the understanding of everyone else, just like how he knew the babies would be born.

On the very same day of Sir Hargreeves’ funeral, though? That is certainly a surprise. It indicates a level of planning that Pogo knows Sir Hargreeves always strived for, but Pogo never _truly_ believed was possible.

Well. That shows him, then. Really, he should know better than to doubt.

It makes him much more optimistic about the chances of Sir Hargreeves’ final wishes being fulfilled, at least.

Hopefully, Pogo won’t have to add to his list of regrets.

**********

Pogo leaves the children to their reunion. The return of Master Five is a cause for great celebration, but Pogo knows he isn’t regarded as part of the children’s inner circle. Master Five certainly never saw him as much, and Pogo….doesn’t think he will get a reunion with the young man.

He pushes away the hurt that thought engenders.

Instead, Pogo focuses on preparing the funeral. There isn’t much to it, which was Sir Hargreeves’ explicit instructions. All his living children were instructed to attend (Pogo is surprised as anyone that that condition managed to be fulfilled), and the rest was up to Pogo.

He’s determined to get this right. Sir Hargreeves was a complicated man, but he was also a very great one. Everything he ever did - and Pogo sometimes suspects that phrase is _very_ literal - has been for the preservation of the world. That deserves recognition.

Naturally, it doesn’t turn out how he wants.

First, Master Diego interrupts the speech Pogo pored over for days. Then Master Luther and Master Diego get into an argument regarding - well, regarding a lot of things, but Pogo knows the underlying issue. His heart twists at that, but then Miss Vanya is attempting to calm everyone down, and Master Diego turns on her, and Miss Allison steps in, and Master Five looks annoyed and jumps away, and Master Luther leaps to Miss Allison’s defense, and then there is a brawl between Masters Luther and Diego.

While not entirely absent from their childhood, the frequency of these brawls skyrocketed once the children reached their teens. After the death of Master Ben, they couldn’t even be in the same room together. Pogo hates to admit it, but the entire house breathed a sigh of relief when Master Diego left two months after the funeral.

It seems even twelve years haven’t quelled their animosity. Pogo really did hope otherwise.

Hope is a dangerous thing, he has learned.

He heads inside, all his plans for giving Sir Hargreeves a peaceful and respectful sendoff dashed.

Which is alright. Pogo knows Sir Hargreeves would consider the fruition of his plan to be much more important than whether his funeral went well. And even though Pogo only knows some of said plan, he knows enough to believe that everything is coming along right on track.

It’s a relief, in some ways. Knowing that as long as he does his best and follows Sir Hargreeves’ instructions, everything will turn out okay in the end.

Pogo retreats to one of Sir Hargreeves’ spare offices, both in order to give the children time to cool down and give himself some time to work out some of the complicated investments Sir Hargreeves had going on. Pogo only rarely handled these things directly, and Sir Hargreeves preferred to keep a tight hold on all of his financials, so all of this is a bit much for Pogo to handle. Damn it all, he’s going to have to spend days working all this out.

Time passes, more quickly than it should, and Pogo is so engrossed by the ledgers and papers and deeds in front of him that by the time he looks up night has already fallen.

He blinks, surprised. “Oh my,” he murmurs to himself. “Well, I shouldn’t have done that, now should I.”

Sighing, he sets his work aside. He didn’t get very far, anyways.

Slowly making his way through the house, he isn’t all that surprised to find that it’s mostly empty. Miss Vanya, Master Five, and Master Diego have all gone. Miss Allison and Master Luther are still here, but it seems they’ve already turned in, or at least wish to be alone in their rooms.

Grace is charging. Pogo looks at her, and promises himself once again that he will repair her as soon as the children have followed through with the plan. It’s the least he can do.

Finally, he cannot put it off any longer.

He goes to see Master Klaus.

**********

The basement elevator is slow and ponderous as always. Pogo visits Master Klaus once a month, and each time the elevator seems to go more slowly, and the hallway seems to stretch out longer, and the door seems to grow much taller.

But Pogo gets out of the elevator, walks down the hallway, and opens the door to the room that allows one to see the massive chamber that once housed Miss Vanya, but has thoroughly become the domain of Master Klaus.

Pogo cannot see Master Klaus through the window set in the door, but he is there. Of course he is there. He’s been there for the past sixteen years, three months and four days.

Sir Hargreeves did not insist that Pogo keep count for that, but he has anyway.

Reaching out, Pogo gently presses the intercom button, and releases it. That, he knows, releases a small burst of static that alerts Master Klaus to his presence, if Master Ben hasn’t already.

He waits for a handful of seconds.

Then Master Klaus comes into view.

He is thirteen years old, and always will be. His body is frozen, unable to age past the point of his death. Held in stasis forever. If Pogo was of a lighter mindset he might compare Master Klaus to Master Five, except Master Klaus never did get to experience growing up.

The reason why, of course, being the visible _dent_ in the side of his head. Even now, years after being cleaned, it is still there. It makes his head subtly misshapen, not as eye-catching as his other injuries but impossible to miss once noticed.

Sir Hargreeves was very angry when Master Klaus inflicted it on himself.

The other injuries are more blatant. Master Klaus is now missing his right arm and left eye. The arm, Pogo knows, has been disassembled and the constituent parts used as playthings for Master Klaus to pass the time. He still doesn’t know exactly what happened to the eye, but he suspects it was simply a result of boredom. The holes around his mouth are from the time Master Klaus sewed his lips shut in a dramatic expression of disinterest in talking with Pogo. There are several other scratches and gouges across his skin, some inflicted by fingernails, some by the knife he fashioned from his own ulna and some simply accrued from being careless. Patches of his hair are gone, which either enhances or distracts from the dent in his head, depending on the light. The way he has to shuffle around, much like Pogo does except without the use of a good cane, is from the time he kicked either the door or the wall hard enough to break several bones in his foot. He can still walk, thanks to his power, but Pogo suspects that were he living the injury would take surgery to heal properly.

Which is the root of the entire thing, of course. Master Klaus, despite his power giving him the means to live beyond death, is still a _corpse._ And corpses do not heal.

Very deliberately, Master Klaus tilts his head to the side. His eye does not waver or blink from where it’s fixed on Pogo. He is wearing the tattered remains of his shirt around his waist, having long ago taken apart his jacket, shorts, shoes and socks.

Pogo presses the intercom button again. This time, he holds it.

Master Klaus doesn’t move.

“....I suppose I don’t have to tell you that Master Five has returned,” Pogo says at last.

“Ben told me,” Master Klaus says.

Pogo prevents himself from wincing at Master Klaus’ voice. Ever since his death, Master Klaus’ intonation has been….well, roughly nonexistent. He only ever speaks in a monotone, even when his other actions would indicate experiencing some kind of emotion. Sir Hargreeves hypothesized that death rendered Master Klaus _incapable_ of emotion, or at least severely stunted his ability to feel such. Pogo isn’t sure he agrees, but he does know that dying changed _something_ about Master Klaus.

He does think the being on the other side of the door _is_ still Master Klaus. Just….perhaps not all of him.

“Just so,” Pogo says. “I, ah, I’m sorry you missed the funeral.”

Master Klaus gives a very slow blink. Entirely for show, of course, since he doesn’t need to blink any more. Carefully, he shuffles forward, until he’s right up in front of the window. He places his hand on the glass, fingers splayed out.

On his palm, the word ‘GOODBYE’ is carved into the flesh.

“Can I come out now?” Klaus says.

Pogo swallows. “....I’m afraid not yet, Master Klaus.”

“Dad is dead,” Klaus says. He closes his hand and trails a finger down the glass. “I want to come out, please. I promise I’ll behave.”

“I know you would,” Pogo says, keeping his voice gentle. “But it’s not safe for you. You’re already very damaged, and I don’t know how much more you could take before losing mobility altogether.”

Master Klaus simply stares at him.

“I’m sorry,” Pogo says heavily.

And he is. He hates the fact that Master Klaus must be kept down here, but Sir Hargreeves was very clear that it is _necessary,_ and Pogo reluctantly agrees with his reasons. No matter which way it is put, the fact remains that Master Klaus _cannot_ heal from any damage he takes. He must be kept as safe as possible, which means in a controlled, isolated location. That was true even before he developed a willingness to maim and injure himself, and it certainly applied after. Pogo hardly even wants to think about what shape he would be in if he were exposed to the dangers of the outside world. Additionally, the Academy is very much in the public eye - not quite as much nowadays, but at the time of Master Klaus’ death they were world-famous. It would have been _noticed_ if one of the Academy members suddenly became much more fragile and in need of protection, not to mention the fact that he would not have aged alongside his siblings. No, a full break was needed, and if the Master Klaus’ mysterious disappearance generated much discussion and ugly speculation for occurring so soon after Master _Five’s_ mysterious disappearance, then so be it.

Pogo sometimes wishes the other children could know, but he isn’t sure how they would take it. Looking at him now, Pogo cannot believe that they would react in any positive manner. Perhaps it really is better, or at least kinder, if they believe Master Klaus ran away. And anyways, Sir Reginald’s plan will ensure they know before the week is out. Once they understand the stakes, Master Klaus will be able to summon Sir Reginald to answer their questions and prevent the cataclysm bearing down on them.

“I want to see them,” Master Klaus says. “Ben says Five looks just like when he ran away. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember what he looks like. I want to see him. And I want to see them all grown up, too.” He pauses. “What do you think I’d look like, if I grew up?”

Pogo swallows again.

“I’m sorry, Master Klaus,” he says. He takes his finger off the intercom button.

Klaus doesn’t try to speak again. Instead he just watches Pogo, unblinking. Carefully, he flattens his palm against the glass again.

_Goodbye._

Pogo turns and limps out of the room, and back upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: major character death, death of a child, suicide, callousness towards a suicide, implied/referenced torture, abuse, rationalization of abuse, _extensive_ self-mutilation, solitary confinement, gaslighting, corpses, zombies, dehumanization, Nuremburg Defense.
> 
> Y'all it was so wild when I decided to look up chimpanzee lifespans on a whim and saw that chimps in domesticity live an average of 55 years. Reginald might be immortal but I doubt he'd share it, so that means that if Diego's flippant remark about Pogo dying in ten years holds any weight he's _maybe_ 15 years older than the siblings. I'm going with about a decade older, meaning he'd have been a young adult in chimp terms when the kids were toddlers. My worldview has shifted ever so slightly.
> 
> Doesn't mean I'm cutting him any slack, of course. Especially not in this fic.
> 
> Poor babie zombie Klaus needs a goddamned hug. And also for Pogo and Reginald to understand that locking a child in a cage for sixteen years is not very conducive to sanity.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your wonderful responses! And I should probably clarify something that doesn't explicitly come up - Klaus can't make Ben or any other ghosts corporeal. He could have, when he was alive, but now too much of his power is directed to keeping his body animated.

Ben used to think his childhood was unhappy. What was that phrase? ‘Nasty, brutish and short’? He can’t remember where that quote is from, but he thinks it describes how his life went pretty well.

He would gladly trade it all back now. His childhood was absolute heaven, compared to death.

“Patrick, it’s my _father’s funeral,_ ” Allison hisses into the phone. “I think the court recognizes that as extenuating circumstances.”

Sighing, Ben closes his eyes and wonders why he even bothered coming out of the basement today. He knows the answer, of course - Klaus wants to know all he can about the siblings he hasn’t seen in over sixteen years. He gave Ben Sad Look #5. Ben hates seeing Sad Look #5.

So. Here he is. Listening to Allison argue with her ex-husband over whether she can speak to her daughter. Ben does have empathy for that, but he just -

It hurts.

It hurts being so close to his sister, hearing her talking, seeing her in front of him, and knowing she can’t return the favor. When she glances up, her eyes skip right over him, and Ben knows he’ll only come up if they decide to talk about his tragic death.

Here’s the thing, though: it wasn’t tragic.

Oh, it was horrible, of course. Painful. Highly disrecommended, getting torn apart by your own power. If Ben still slept he would probably have nightmares about it. But once the dust settled, once Ben reformed as a ghost at his own funeral and understood what had happened and had his obligatory breakdown and spent some time following his siblings around begging them to answer him -

He found Klaus.

It wasn’t hard. Ben thinks he probably would have found him even if he didn’t end up following Pogo downstairs. Klaus has a sort of - pull. Ben has rarely seen another ghost down in the basement, so it might only apply to the ghosts of people Klaus was close to, but there is nevertheless a _pull_ that Ben can feel, connecting him to Klaus. He would have found his brother within a couple days, tops, even if he didn’t decide to follow Pogo down to the basement.

And finding Klaus?

Finding Klaus made every moment of his death worth it.

Ben’s attention is drawn back to Allison as she hangs up the phone, expression frustrated. Vanya is over by the foot of the stairs, standing awkwardly.

He studies them, quietly. He’s seen them both before this, semi-regularly. Vanya in person, Allison through televised interviews and various movies. They look much the same as ever, although Ben takes note of their current fashion choices to bring back to Klaus. He always describes their siblings in minute detail to Klaus, so Klaus can maybe picture them himself.

It makes Klaus happy. Or as happy as he can be, anyways.

The argument that springs up is hardly unexpected. Or, well, calling it an argument would be pretty generous. It’s mostly just Allison lashing out at Vanya.

“You isolate yourself from everyone, you always have,” Allison accuses, face set in anger. Most of it is directed more at Patrick than Vanya, Ben can tell, but Patrick isn’t here and Vanya is.

A look of hurt flashes across Vanya’s face. “Because Dad made me.”

Having some firsthand experience with just how _thoroughly_ Dad will go to isolate someone from the rest of the family, Ben doesn’t know whether he should be sympathetic or tell her to be thankful it wasn’t worse.

“Did Dad _make_ you write that book about us?” Allison asks.

Ah. Right. The book.

Ben isn’t all that fond of the book. Luther read the whole thing, cover to cover, multiple times, so Ben was able to look over his shoulder and read it too. It’s….not particularly kind. Frankly, Ben was surprised at the sheer amount of vitriol Vanya found to throw at her family. He never would have suspected to hear such things coming from shy, sweet Vanya.

She was lonely, though. And even if she wasn’t half as alone as Klaus was before Ben died, that sort of thing can do things to people. It sticks with you. Ben has learned that _very_ thoroughly.

It’s almost enough to make him forgive her.

He would probably be more sympathetic if Vanya was kinder to Klaus, in the book. And to her credit, she wasn’t as harsh on him as she was on, say, Luther. But she wasn’t gentle in her condemnation. She called him creepy. Upsetting. She detailed his habit of playing with dead things and emphasized how _disturbing_ it was - and Ben can admit it kind of was, when they were kids, but now he realizes Klaus just wanted to play with _someone._ And if his siblings always kept their distance, there wasn’t much else for him to do but make his own playmates.

Vanya at least softened her depiction enough to be sad about Klaus ‘running away,’ expressing regret that she lost yet another one of her brothers, and so soon after Five. Ben isn’t all that impressed, though. Half the reason she was sad about him ‘leaving’ is because they lost the ability to know if Five was dead or alive.

She conspicuously failed to mention the part where Dad’s brutal methods to find out Five’s status are most of what caused Klaus to snap in the first place.

(Klaus _still_ won’t tell Ben what Dad did. Every time Ben tries to bring it up, Klaus has a panic attack, and usually gains another injury. After the time Klaus stabbed himself through the eye, Ben stopped asking.)

(Ben is really, really fucking glad that Dad is dead.)

So. No, Ben isn’t all that fond of the book. It’s biased, and full of resentment, and dismisses nearly all of the rest of their traumas to focus on Vanya’s own. He isn’t really a fan, even if she gives him one of the most positive portrayals (that almost makes it worse, actually. Ben knows he was the most generally well-liked sibling when he was alive, but he wasn’t _kind._ He murdered more people than the rest of them put together. He didn’t have a bad thing to say about anyone, but that’s because he was too concerned about losing his status, not because he never wanted to say bad things. He was a _coward,_ not a martyr).

“You’re an adult now, Vanya,” Allison says. “You can’t blame your problems on anyone but yourself.”

Well. That’s funny. Ben wonders how Allison would react to Klaus, who never got to be an adult. Even Ben, dead at seventeen, is so much older than Klaus ever will be.

And speaking of Klaus, Ben bets he’s getting lonely by now. Ben has been away for a couple hours now, following their siblings around the house. He’s not really sure what Vanya and Five’s little talk was about (a therapist? What?), but Five absconded with a very confused Luther for some sort of - undercover thing? He wasn’t very clear.

Anyways. With Vanya now gone, Allison is the last person in the house, besides Pogo and Mom of course. So there’s not much going on, which means it’s time to head back down to Klaus.

It takes much less time to reach the bunker if you’re incorporeal. Ben walks through the wall (feeling the usual pang that it’s so fucking _easy_ for him, and utterly impossible for Klaus) and regards his brother.

“Hey,” Ben says.

Klaus glances up. “Hi,” he says.

He’s holding a scrap of fabric, turning it over in his hand. It’s a piece of his shoe, looks like. Interesting. Klaus usually uses the fabric from his Academy jacket and socks if he wants to make something.

“What are you doing?” Ben asks, sitting cross-legged next to his little brother and peering at the leather. Both of Klaus’ shoes have been completely disassembled for years now, and this is one of the larger, rounder pieces. It’s slightly concave, so Ben thinks it might be from the toe of one of them.

Klaus raises up the piece of leather to hold it over his ruined eye.

“I’m a pirate,” he says solemnly. “Yarr.”

Ben has to huff out a laugh at that. “Are you now. You’re making an eyepatch?”

“Uh huh,” Klaus nods. He pulls his hand away from his face slightly and squints at the leather piece. Slowly, carefully, two tiny holes open in the leather, one on each side.

Ben raises his eyebrows. Not because of how the holes magically appear - it’s _leather,_ AKA dead cow hide, AKA something entirely under Klaus’ control - but at how Klaus is really making such a permanent change to one of the larger scraps he has left.

“Why an eyepatch?” Ben says. He wouldn’t consider it a particularly high priority. Klaus scooped out the bits of his ruined eye, so now there’s just a hole there. It’s not exactly a pretty sight, but Ben’s grown used to it over the years. Honestly, it’s not nearly as upsetting as the ‘goodbye’ Klaus carved into his palm (apparently he also carved ‘hello’ into the other one, but he removed his arm two years before Ben’s death, so Ben never saw it).

“I don’t want them to be upset when they see me,” Klaus says. “When I get out.”

Ben’s smile fades.

“Oh,” he says. He blinks a couple times, rapidly. “They - they won’t be upset, Klaus.”

“You were upset,” Klaus says. Not accusing, just matter-of-fact.

And - yeah, Ben can’t deny that. He was definitely upset when he first found Klaus, although ‘upset’ might be something of an understatement. ‘Full-on mental breakdown’ might be closer. The realization that Klaus _died_ thanks to Dad’s treatment (and it’s definitely Dad’s fault, no matter that Klaus performed the finishing move himself) was bad enough. But then learning that his powers brought him back, and Dad just _locked him away for **years,**_ was - Ben can’t really describe what learning that was like.

He didn’t really handle it well, he can admit. It ranks among one of Ben’s greatest regrets, because as much as he _did_ deserve to freak out upon finding out his brother is a zombie kept locked up in their basement, he should have been able to pull himself together enough to offer comfort to Klaus.

Klaus, who spent the four years between Ben’s death and his own completely alone. Klaus, who only got visited by Pogo once a month and Dad once a year, and was completely ignored otherwise. Klaus, who had _no_ contact with the outside world, who was starting to question that there even was such a thing by then. Klaus, unable to eat or sleep or even cry, who had nothing to fill the endless, endless hours-days-weeks- _months_ besides himself and the clothes on his back.

Klaus, who went predictably, completely insane.

Compared to that, Ben’s issues don’t really matter all that much.

He’s better now. Or, well, better than he was. Ben made sure of that. Piecing his brother’s shattered sanity back together was the work of _years,_ and even now it’s pretty much held together with glue and string.

Klaus has outbursts that even Ben has trouble predicting, especially since it’s hard to tell Klaus’ emotional state nowadays. He always speaks in a monotone, rarely has facial expressions, and reacts with an eerie serenity to almost anything that happens, except when he doesn’t and has a massive meltdown. From what Ben can remember of Klaus before his death, Klaus actually acts _younger_ now, more childish. He doesn’t seem to be capable of mentally growing up, and Ben is pretty sure going insane made him regress further. He doesn’t like talking about serious things, doesn’t even like _thinking_ about them usually, except through a few layers of obfuscation.

He also believes that he’ll get to come out of the bunker one day. He says Dad promised it would happen, and he believes that, wholly and fully, with the strength only a child can muster.

Ben is much less confident. Yeah, Dad is dead now. But Pogo….no matter that Pogo acts more sympathetic whenever he comes down here, he’s never lifted a fucking _finger_ to help Klaus. Dad’s man, through and through.

Keeping a child locked up alone in a prison cell for _sixteen years_ is not something Ben is capable of forgiving.

“Ben?” Klaus says.

“Hm?” Ben looks at Klaus. He realizes he missed Klaus threading one of his thinner strips of fabric through the holes in the eyepatch. Klaus adjusts the patch slightly, and tilts his head.

“How do I look?” Klaus asks.

He actually looks much better like this, Ben has to admit. Sure, there’s still the torn-off flesh where his arm used to be, and his skin is bone-white thanks to his habit of using his blood to paint on the walls, and it’s _pretty_ obvious his mouth was sewn together at one point, and there’s a few other scrapes and cuts littered around, but the eyepatch does help. Ben got used to the empty hole in his brother’s face, but he remembers being really freaked out about it when it first happened.

“Pretty good,” Ben says, smiling a little. “Uh, move it a little to the left.” Klaus does so, and Ben gives him a thumbs-up. “Perfect.”

Klaus gives one of his rare smiles, and Ben’s own widens in response. And he carefully tucks away his doubts about Klaus ever getting out, because Klaus doesn’t need to hear that right now.

There’s very little Ben can do to protect his little brother, but he can try.

“I’m a pirate now,” Klaus informs Ben gravely. He pauses. “No. I’m a stowaway.”

“Why a stowaway instead of a pirate?” Ben wonders. “Aren’t pirates cooler?”

“Yes. But I’m a stowaway.” Klaus points at the door.

….Oh.

“Not by choice, though,” Ben says.

“No,” Klaus says. He blinks at Ben. “Do you want to play callbones?”

“Sure,” Ben says, happy to stop talking about this. Even if he has to play callbones for the ten-thousandth time. “As long as you don’t cheat.”

“I don’t cheat,” Klaus says, and Ben doesn’t think he’s imagining the faint expression of annoyance on Klaus’ face. Wow, evidence of two emotions in less than five minutes. Today is a pretty good day. “You’re just really bad at playing.”

“No, I’m pretty sure you cheat,” Ben needles his little brother. And - he _is_ his little brother. Ben might only be seventeen (technically twenty-nine, but he feels somewhere in-between the two - not as adultlike as his living siblings but not like the teenager he was when he died), but Klaus is truly a child. He’s _also_ twenty-nine, but that’s even more technical than Ben. Unlike Ben, and apparently Five, Klaus’ mind is stuck matching his body. Ben doesn’t know if that’s a side-effect of his powers or the horrific trauma, but either way, it leaves him a permanent child, in both mind and body.

Ben, for obvious reasons, never had a younger sibling in life. In death, though….Klaus is definitely his little brother. He’s young, and traumatized, and he looks to Ben for protection and guidance and advice and entertainment and information and - well, _everything,_ really. It’s become Ben’s job to take care of Klaus, as best he can manage.

“I don’t cheat,” Klaus repeats, and yes, he’s definitely annoyed now. Ben grins wider.

“Of course you don’t,” Ben says exaggeratedly. “Of _course._ Now let’s play.”

Klaus stares at him in a way that Ben knows means he’s considering _actually_ cheating, but eventually huffs slightly and lays out the necessary pieces.

Ben repositions himself to give them more room, and glances at Klaus from the corner of his eye. The eyepatch looks unfamiliar, alien, but Ben will get used to it soon enough, just like he got used to the rest of Klaus.

He isn’t doing the best job at this big brother thing, Ben knows. For fuck’s sake, he can’t even _hug_ Klaus.

He’s doing the best he can, though. And maybe - maybe that will be enough.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Allison knows she isn’t all that good of a person, okay?

It’s finally gotten through to her. Twenty-nine years, and she finally realized it. She’d be upset that it took so long, but that’s actually her fault, and she already feels shitty enough.

So.

First things first: Allison is not a good person. She’s been lying to herself about that for - a long time, and she only recently realized it. It took even longer for her to realize she always thought she was in the right because _Dad_ always said she was in the right. He said the _Academy_ was always in the right. And everyone agreed with him. The reporters, the magazines, the fans, the whole _world._ There was no one who didn’t say the Umbrella Academy wasn’t utterly and wholly Good - at least, no one Dad allowed them to have access to.

Allison knows that means it wasn’t entirely her fault that she grew up to be like she is. That sort of childhood would fuck with anyone’s head. Now, with distance and time under her belt, she can look back at the Academy, at her life as a child superhero, and realize she was really a child _soldier._ It’s no wonder she’s a goddamn mess as an adult.

But. Like she said to Vanya: she’s an adult now. She can’t blame her problems of _now_ on anyone but herself.

Second things second: Allison is not a good mother. It was painful to realize that - god, the most pain she’s been in since Ben died. When Claire was born, Allison looked into her daughter’s tiny face and _swore_ to herself that she’d be a better parent than her own. The thought of treating Claire like Dad treated her and her siblings was utterly abhorrent, and helped solidify Allison’s realization that he truly was a horrible father. And Mom - Allison loves her mother, but the moment Allison looked at Claire she realized that she could never be like her.

Well. She succeeded at that. Instead of allowing abuse, she inflicted it. Mother of the year, right there.

She wants to be better. God, she wants to, so much. She’s realized she was wrong, she’s _trying,started_ on the tabloids.

Allison always took pride in the fact that she was the most successful of her siblings. The one who really managed to succeed in the real world. Turns out, she never lived in the real world, and it’s a hell of a lot harder than she was prepared for.

Which brings her to the third point: Allison is not a good sister.

That, more than anything, is the one that comes as the least surprise. As much as Allison tried to deny it when she was younger, she always knew she wasn’t the greatest sister to her siblings. She covered it up by reassuring herself that her bond with _Luther_ was diamond-strong (even if she realized some time in her teens that she didn’t particularly like thinking of him in sibling-like terms), and telling herself that after all, with so many of them, she didn’t have to be close to _all_ of them. They could bond with each other instead of her. It didn’t make them any less of a family.

Except it did.

Because she was so wrapped up in herself and Luther and being the Rumor, Allison failed to notice the cracks in her family until it was too late. Until Five’s impatience overwhelmed his sense and he ran off, never to be seen again until almost seventeen years later, leaving a giant gaping hole in the middle of their family. Until Klaus was pushed too far by their disquiet over his powers and followed Five, and unlike him Klaus might never come home, might not be _able_ to come home. Until Ben’s demons grew and grew until he couldn’t push them down any more, and it ended up being the death of him.

Allison doesn’t know if she could have prevented any of that by being a better sister. But the fact of the matter is - she didn’t even _try._

She wants to try now.

She also wants to go back to L.A. and try to be a better mother to Claire. But from the way Patrick was talking on the phone, it won’t matter if she gets back today or next week. She still won’t be able to see her daughter, not yet.

So. It looks like she’s going to be staying at the Academy for a little while longer. Allison would be more hesitant about that if Five hadn’t come home. But now that he has - she’s realized just how much she wants them to be a family again, instead of, and Vanya put it, a bunch of strangers living under the same roof.

Allison is busy _unpacking_ the clothes she put in her bag this morning when she hears Luther going into his room. She hesitates, and then goes to knock in his doorframe.

He looks up at her, blinking. “Oh,” he says. “Uh, hi.”

“Hey,” she says, raising an eyebrow at him. “Where were you?”

“I, uh,” Luther winces. “Five needed me to do something.”

“Oh? What?” Allison says, coming into his room.

“....You know, I’m still not sure,” Luther says, sounding bemused.

Allison can’t help a giggle slipping out. “What?”

“Well, he took me to a prosthetics company, made me pretend to be his _dad,_ and threw a tantrum when the doctors wouldn’t tell him who owns this prosthetic eye he has for some reason. Then he made me pick up a desk, took the doctor aside and talked to him - actually, now that I think about it, I think he was threatening the guy with _me,_ he kept pointing at me - and then we went to go find the information on the eye, but it, uh, doesn’t exist yet. I think.” Luther pauses. “Five _really_ didn’t like that.”

“....And he didn’t explain this at all?” Allison says, blinking and trying to figure out how that makes….any kind of sense.

“No,” Luther says. “And I wasn’t allowed to talk, either. He almost broke my fingers when I did, and I didn’t want to risk a second time.”

They look at each other.

“.....Okay,” Allison says. “That’s. Interesting.”

Luther snorts a little. “Yeah. He wasn’t all that forthcoming. I don’t know where he is now, and frankly I’m a little scared to.”

Allison smiles. “Well, do you want to try and find out? We were all too overwhelmed yesterday, but - I kind of want to try and spend some time with him, now that he’s back.”

He hesitates. “Actually, I was going to head out again.”

“Oh?” Allison says, raising an eyebrow. “Where to?”

He doesn’t look like he wants to tell her, the words dragged out of him very slowly. “There’s this gym I wanted to go to, I - uh, I heard Diego goes there.”

“Diego? Why would -” and then it hits Allison, and she feels her face droop in disappointment. Luther looks away. “You think he killed Dad.”

“It’s a _possibility,_ Allison,” he instantly defends.

“Luther,” Allison sighs. She walks up to him, putting a hand on his arm. That thick overcoat of his probably prevents him from feeling it, but it’s how she got him to listen when they were kids. Maybe it still works. “Listen to what you’re saying. You’re accusing your own brother of murdering our father.”

“I’m not accusing, I’m just _stating a possibility,_ ” Luther says. “Because it _is_ possible, okay? There’s definitely something up with Dad’s missing monocle, and Diego hated him and made sure _everyone_ knew it. He blamed Dad for everything - training and missions and Five and Klaus and Ben -”

“And that makes it okay to take down more of us?” Allison says, a little more heatedly than she means to. “Luther, I’ve already lost _half_ of all my siblings. By some miracle we got Five back, but I don’t think that’s going to happen twice. We should be trying to come back together, not ripping each other apart over some invented mystery!”

She knows she’s gone too far by the stricken look on his face. She winces, and looks away.

“I’m sorry,” Allison says. She still finds it hard to say that, but she’s trying. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just….” She sighs. “I want for us to try and be a family again, even if we’re missing a few pieces. And I don’t know if - that’s even possible.”

Luther stays quiet for a few seconds, before clearing his throat. “Well, I mean,” he says. “Dad was always certain Klaus would come back. He talked like it was just a matter of time. Hell, I think he put more faith in Klaus returning than in Five. And Five’s back, so….”

Suddenly, Allison feels so, so tired. She looks at Luther.

“Luther,” she says. “Klaus was thirteen when he ran away. And he couldn’t have jumped to another time like Five. He was thirteen, living alone on the streets, with no support. I don’t think he’s in any shape to come back.”

“What?” Luther straightens up, surprise in his eyes. “No, Allison, I’m sure he’s okay. He had the same training as the rest of us, and he had his powers, and he would have come back if it got _bad._ ”

Allison takes in a deep breath. “I hired a private investigator, you know,” she says. “About seven or eight years ago. Hired several, in fact. I tried to find him. None of them did. And I tried again a few months ago.” In an effort to fill the void left by Patrick and Claire, desperately trying to prove to herself that family didn’t _always_ stay lost forever. But. Well. “There wasn’t a trace, Luther. It’s like he just vanished into thin air. At least with Five there was an explanation for that, but Klaus?”

Luther looks uncertain, but shakes his head. “He’s out there, Allison,” Luther says firmly. “I know it - _Dad_ knew it. He’ll come home some day. Just you watch.”

“Living on hope isn’t that great of a strategy, Luther,” Allison says quietly.

“It’s not hope,” Luther says. “It’s faith. Faith in both Dad and Klaus.”

Allison feels an ache in her chest, just under her breastbone. She looks at Luther and can’t help but feel pity for him. He’s always been loyal and stalwart and, yes, faithful, and she thinks it’s exceptionally cruel of the universe to twist those virtues around to make him blind to the truth.

Because Allison realized a long time ago that any faith given to Dad is a lost investment. It will never be realized, never fulfilled, never honored, because Dad was quite simply _wrong,_ in every way that counted. The fact that Luther is still patiently waiting on the return of their brother just because Dad said it would happen steals her breath away at the unfairness of it all.

And - and even more than that, Allison realizes there’s some part of her that _wants_ that. She wants that steady certainty, because it was already ripped away from her twice, when she realized the truth about Dad and then the truth about herself. She wants the foundation of her world to remain steady and strong even through the worst the world has to offer. She wants to believe, with all of her heart, that Klaus will return one day, maybe even soon, and she’ll get to have as much of her family around her as possible.

She wants, so very much, to apologize to her brother.

“Do you ever think about the last thing you said to him?” Allison asks.

Luther flinches, and she knows the answer is yes.

“Yeah,” Allison swallows. “Me too.”

“I,” Luther says. He looks at her pleadingly. “I’m going to apologize. When he comes back. I shouldn’t have - said that. I know he wouldn’t have.”

“I was the one who brought it up in the first place,” Allison says.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Luther says.

Allison takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes to prevent tears from gathering, and rides through the urge to ask Five to take her back in time seventeen years and _slap_ her younger self. It’s an old, old shame, one of her very firsts. God, if she just _thought_ for a _minute,_ instead of assuming the absolute _worst_ about her brother with zero evidence.

Yeah, Klaus’ necromancy was creepy. But he didn’t ask to have his power. And he kept the corpses away from them if they were really upset about it. He tried to befriend them even when they pushed him away, even when they demanded he deny an essential part of himself. And Dad certainly never helped anything, demanding Klaus hone his power while never letting anyone breathe a word of it to the public. Until Vanya’s book came out, everyone only knew of Klaus’ power to see the dead.

It led to all of them regarding Klaus’ necromancy as some sort of dirty little secret, unfit for polite company. Allison remembers exactly how she saw it - creepy, and disturbing, and just plain _wrong._ The sight of rotting corpses shambling along the Academy halls featured in more than a few of her nightmares, only in her nightmares they weren’t animals but _people._ Her _family._

And she let that fear get the better of her, and drove her brother away as a result.

….Just like today, with Vanya.

Allison breathes out, and swallows. She looks at Luther.

“It is my fault. And I can’t fix it.” Because she doesn’t share Luther’s faith that Klaus is still out there. Because she doesn’t think the world would be that kind. “But I can try not to do it again. I’m - I’m going to go visit Vanya. You have a nice day, alright? And when you realize this doesn’t have to be a mission….I’ll be here. Okay?”

“Is that what you think this is?” Luther says, looking wounded.

She smiles a sad smile, and reaches out to touch his arm one last time. “I think there’s a reason you never left,” she says.

And then, when he doesn’t respond, she leaves.


	4. Chapter 4

Five sits, trembling, behind the counter, the echoes of gunshots ringing in his ears. Delores is in his arms, _safe,_ but she almost wasn’t. She almost -

There are sirens. It takes a few seconds for him to place the sound, but once he does he realizes he needs to go.

He isn’t sure of the exact sequence of events that happens next, but he does get out of the store. So that’s good. And doing things on automatic is hardly unprecedented for him. Sometimes he’d lose entire days in the apocalypse, time blurring past him, and it was only when he looked at the calendar he kept that he realized he’d marked more than he remembered.

But. He has to remember he’s not in the apocalypse any more. He’s back home, trying to _prevent_ the apocalypse. He can’t get lost in memories and fear, can’t replay the image of Delores getting shot through the torso, can’t get stuck in that horrible scene of finding half his siblings _dead -_

Five arrives at the Academy. He heads inside.

After he runs into Allison and Luther and rejects their offer to _help_ (they can’t help, _none_ of them can help, don’t they know they’re all walking corpses?), Five flees to his room.

Shakily, he pulls Delores out of the duffel bag he can’t remember putting her in. She looks at him, and he’s not sure exactly what his face says but she read it perfectly, instantly. She sighs.

_‘I see you’ve been taking care of yourself,’_ she says.

“I’m still alive,” Five manages. He holds her hand, the cool plastic smooth against his skin. God, he missed her.

_‘Which does deserve recognition,’_ she concedes. _‘But you can’t convince me these last five years haven’t weighed on you.’_

He shrugs. “Not as much as the apocalypse.”

_‘I think comparing **anything** to the apocalypse is something of a fallacy, Five,’_ she says. Then she sighs again. _‘But I see your point. So. What is our plan?’_

Five gives her the rundown on MeriTech, and the dead end _that_ turned out to be. He’s going to set up a stakeout tomorrow, wait to see who comes in needing an eye. It makes his skin itch to have to wait for some indeterminate length of time, especially with the Commission on his tail, but it’s all he can think to do. He’s still reeling from the revelation that the eye hasn’t been sold yet. He’s been so fixated on finding the owner, spent nearly _half a century_ convinced it’d be just that easy, that he’s still on the back foot from finding out it’s not.

But that’s okay. He should have known there would be obstacles. There’s _always_ obstacles, in every single situation, in every facet of Five’s life up till now. There was Dad, and his own arrogance, and his goddamn powers, and storms and ash and rot and death and lack of food and lack of water and lack of medicine and so _fucking_ much. Five has encountered just about every obstacle there is, quite literally everything the world can throw at him. And he’s always come through. He’s survived.

He can do this.

_‘Are you going to involve your siblings in any of it?’_ Delores asks, when he’s done outlining his plan for tomorrow.

“No,” Five says immediately. “No. They wouldn’t be any help. I used Luther to get into the records, but that’s as far as it goes. I can do the rest myself.”

_‘Are you sure keeping them in the dark is the best move?’_

“I tried telling them,” Five snaps. “I tried - I told Vanya. The first night I came back. I told her about the apocalypse, how much time we have. What I did to survive. And she - didn’t believe me. She thought I was crazy.”

Five stands, and paces around the room. He wants to jump, wants to stretch his powers even if it hurts right now, _especially_ if it hurts, because maybe then it’ll overshadow the stabbing pain that occurs whenever he thinks of Vanya’s disbelieving face.

“She didn’t believe me,” Five repeats, stopping in the middle of the room. He stares out the window into the blackness of the night. “She didn’t….”

There’s silence for several long, long seconds.

_‘I’m sorry, Five,’_ Delores says.

He swallows, and looks away from the window back to her. “Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”

_‘So none of them know what happened to Klaus?’_ Delores says after a moment.

Five is almost grateful for the change in subject. Delores does that a lot, switching out one painful topic for another. It’s how she helps him - it’s impossible for him to bury all of his trauma, there’s just too _much_ of it, so the next best thing is to not linger too long on any particular one.

Frankly, though, he’d rather not think about this one at the moment.

“I haven’t asked,” Five says, after a too-long pause.

He can practically _feel_ her disappointment. _‘Five….’_

“It’s not important,” Five says testily. “Not now. And I think if any of them _did_ know anything more than what Vanya’s book said, they would have told me. Considering his return would be just as miraculous as mine if it happened, I probably would have heard about it.”

_‘It’s been eating at you for forty-five years, though,’_ Delores says quietly. _‘Five, you owe it to **yourself** to ask for more information. You’ve said over and over again that Vanya’s book has flaws. You’re afraid.’_

“I’m not _afraid,_ ” Five snaps, and suddenly he is overwhelmed with deja-vu of the day he jumped to the future, and has to sit down.

_‘You are, Five,’_ Delores says, gentler now. _‘You hate that it was an argument over **you** that led to Klaus running away. You’re angry that your siblings would turn on him in your name. You’re scared Klaus died out on the streets, mere months after you left, and that it’s your fault.’_

Five realizes he is shaking.

“I -” he says, and stops when his voice cracks.

Delores is quiet as he takes several long, slow breaths. The room is utterly silent otherwise.

“I’m going to sleep now,” Five says eventually.

Delores just sighs. Five ignores her and turns off his light, slipping under the covers and closing his eyes.

It’s a long time before he falls asleep.

**********

Five wakes up the next morning with a plan.

The plan is still pretty much the same as it was last night. He’ll steal a car (probably some sort of maintenance vehicle, something that won’t attract attention if it sits around for a while), and stake out MeriTech until someone comes in asking for a new eye. Then he’ll kill them.

There will probably be complications in this plan at some point, but Five is confident in his ability to improvise. _And_ in his ability to work around (or through, if necessary) the Commission.

He can do this. He _can._

Delores, probably sensing the lingering nervousness he definitely doesn’t have, makes idle chatter as Five gets ready for the day. Five finds himself grateful for that. He probably would have forgotten what human speech is like entirely if he didn’t have her around.

She also graciously accepts being put inside the duffel bag again. He really doesn’t deserve her, although he knows if he said that she’d only give him a _look_ that says very clearly how much she thinks of that kind of talk. So Five just quietly resolves to get her some new shirts and possibly some makeup once the apocalypse blows over.

(The thought still doesn’t feel quite _real,_ that this time next week he’ll either be dead or be freed of the burden he’s carried for the last forty-five years. But he does need to act like it’s going to happen, and this family has always done reasonably well in the ‘fake it till you make it’ department.)

Five escapes through his window in order to avoid running into any of his siblings, and drops down into the alleyway next to the house. It’s cramped and kind of depressing, but to Five’s eyes it’s pretty luxurious. There are actually two standing walls around him, and a dumpster full of only slightly rotted resources. Not that Five really notices the smell of rot anymore - if anything, the _absence_ of such is much more attention-grabbing.

The alley is deserted except for - oh. Well. That’s convenient. Some sort of van is parked about halfway down. Maybe a plumber? The person Five presumes to be the owner is further down near the opening of the alley, doing whatever he’s here for. It’ll be child’s play to steal the van.

Well. Hopefully, that’s an indicator of how this day is going to go.

Five starts off towards the van, mentally running over how to hotwire it, when -

“Hey, Five!” Diego calls out.

….Great. Lovely. Just what he needed.

Five debates jumping away, but for some reason his body doesn’t follow through. Instead, he sighs, and turns around.

Diego saunters up to him, looking him up and down with raised eyebrows. Five impatiently stares back.

“What are _you_ doing skulking around in back alleys?” Diego asks.

“I could ask the same of you, but I just remembered that I don’t care,” Five says flatly.

Diego snorts. “I was just coming back from a crime scene. Someone shot up a department store last night, probably connected to that diner massacre a couple nights ago. You know anything about that, future boy?”

Ah. Well. Five supposes he wasn’t going to keep a low profile forever. He really would have liked more time before his family stuck their noses in - he would have liked them to not stick their noses in at _all,_ ideally - but Five never does get what he wants.

“For the record, they shot first,” Five says. Which is technically true, because Five didn’t have a gun.

“They -” Diego frowns.

Then his eyes go _very_ wide.

“That was _you?_ ” Diego half-shouts.

….Oh.

Fuck.

“No?” Five tries.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Diego says, not falling for Five’s brilliant backtracking. Which is fair, Five wouldn’t fall for it either. “What the _fuck,_ Five. You were the kid in the diner? You killed all those guys? Jesus Christ, what the hell _happened?_ ”

“It’s nothing that concerns you,” Five says, even as he knows that won’t be enough to deflect Diego. The entire force of the Commission wouldn’t be enough to deflect Diego.

“No, I think it does,” Diego says predictably. “Because apparently you came back and immediately got pulled into a bunch of _shootouts_ all over town, and I think I have a right to know why.” He pauses, and his face shades into horror. “Wait, did - did you kill the tow truck driver?”

“He’s dead?” Five says, surprised. Huh. Well, that explains how they found him at Gimbel’s. “No, I didn’t. I assume he was killed by the people that sent those thugs after me - was he tortured?”

“Yeah,” Diego says. “And please _do_ explain why you have people after you willing to torture people and shoot up places.”

“I’d rather not,” Five says, turning to go.

He hisses as Diego grabs his arm. “No, you don’t get to walk away from this, Five, this is _serious!_ ”

“Really, I hadn’t noticed,” Five snaps, ripping himself away from his brother’s grasp and glaring. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Diego, and you _wouldn’t_ be any help in this. As a matter of fact, you’d be a downright millstone. So just let me be, and I’ll be able to work much more effectively without any of you getting in my way.”

“I’m not losing you _again,_ Five!” Diego shouts.

Five nearly has to bite his tongue off from shouting back _and you think I could handle losing **you** again?_ Instead, he just glares harder.

However, Diego takes that as an invitation to keep talking. “Look,” he says, working his jaw. “It was - hard, after you left. We only managed as well as we did because we knew you weren’t dead, and look how that turned out. If you die because of some stupid fuckers a couple _days_ after coming back, that won’t - it - shit,” Diego forms his hands into fists, looking away.

Five presses his lips together, and tries not to explain to Diego just _exactly_ what it would be like for _him_ if one (or _more_ ) of his siblings were to die because they got pulled into trying to protect him from his own choices. Five doesn’t know how he’s going to handle the entire Commission on his own, but he’s made his bed, and now he has to lie in it. The thought of any of his siblings getting hurt or killed because of that might actually be more painful than the thought of them dying in the apocalypse again.

Then his brain latches onto part of what Diego said. He frowns.

“What do you mean, ‘look how that turned out’?” Five says.

Diego -

freezes.

His brother looks away, and now he looks even more frustrated and angry. Five didn’t know that was possible.

There’s a few seconds of silence where Diego is clearly pondering whether to not answer. Five feels frustration rise inside of him at the sight, but he also….he also gets the feeling he might not _want_ to hear the answer.

But Diego crosses his arms and glares at the ground, saying, “I guess you learned about Klaus from Vanya’s book?”

This time, it’s Five’s turn to freeze.

“....Yeah,” he says. “I have to say, I wasn’t impressed with how you handled that meeting. Unless that part wasn’t accurate?”

“No, it was,” Diego says, and the words are obviously painful for him to say. “We were - idiots. That was definitely the final straw for him.” Diego’s face darkens. “But he didn’t run away just because of that. It was mostly the way Dad treated him, after you ran away.”

A slow frisson of horror runs through Five. “What do you mean.”

“I mean Dad wanted to make _sure_ you weren’t dead,” Diego says flatly. “He tortured Klaus. I don’t know what the hell he did, but Klaus was a wreck. He barely ate, barely slept, hardly ever spoke - that meeting was the first time I heard him string two sentences together since you left, and he barely managed that. And we didn’t - say anything.” Diego clenches his jaw. “We didn’t say anything, because - we wanted to know, too.”

Diego takes a deep, deep breath.

“And _that’s_ why Klaus ran away. The meeting was the final straw, but there was a whole shitton of crap before it.”

Five….can’t quite speak.

_Huh,_ an unexpectedly serene part of his mind notes. _That was actually much worse than I was expecting._

“So,” Diego says, finally looking at Five. “Yeah. That’s what happened.”

Five finally manages to find his tongue, and uses it to go, “I see.” Then, “And you have no idea where he is now?”

“Hasn’t been a trace,” Diego says, looking solemn, his eyes holding something close to sympathy, overshadowed by pain. “And - I don’t think there ever will be.”

The implications hit harder than they really should, considering Five has definitely thought of the possibility before. Klaus, dead in a gutter years before the end of the world, possibly just weeks after he left the Academy. Dead from cold or starvation or maybe even another person. Five has _seen_ what happens to street children during his travels - gangs and drugs and prostitution are the norm, for them. There’s _every_ chance Klaus died a long, long time ago, alone and afraid and in pain.

“I see,” Five says again, distantly. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Yeah,” Diego says. He swallows. “So, you can see why you should have back-up in whatever -”

Five jumps away before Diego finishes his sentence, landing on the opposite side of the Academy. He hunches his shoulders, regretting the loss of the plumber’s van, but he can always find another vehicle to suit his purposes. What he _can’t_ do is listen to Diego try and convince him to let his siblings try and help him.

He will _not_ be responsible for even _more_ of them being hurt. He refuses.

Five takes a deep breath, straightens up, and heads off to MeriTech.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

“You win,” Klaus says.

Ben rears back in surprise, then leans forward for a closer look. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah,” Klaus says. “See?”

“Holy shit, you’re right,” Ben says, a smile spreading across his face. “I win! Ha!”

“I told you I don’t cheat,” Klaus says.

Ben rolls his eyes, and gives an exaggerated bow. Since he’s already sitting, it probably looks ridiculous, but whatever. “I deeply apologize for offending your honor, Klaus,” he says dryly. “Please, forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven,” Klaus says gravely. “As long as you sing two more songs tonight.”

“Ugh, fine,” Ben says.

It’s not all that much of a hardship, to be honest. Ben didn’t much care for singing when he was alive, and frankly he was still kind of self-conscious about it after he died, but he quickly learned not to be in the face of trying absolutely anything to piece together Klaus’ shattered mind.

Singing turned out to be one of the more effective tools in his arsenal. One of the first indications Klaus was coming back to himself was when Ben tried singing him lullabies and random pop songs and his eyes actually _focused_ on Ben. Klaus hasn’t heard real music since he died, and Ben knows his own skills are a poor substitute, but singing is still the fastest way to get Klaus feeling something approaching happiness.

In the face of that, Ben will happily sing for weeks on end if he has to.

“What time is it?” Klaus asks all of a sudden. He sweeps their current playing pieces to the side, placing them in a neat pile next to the others. Then he picks up the largest bone - Ben is pretty sure it’s called the humerus, but it’s not like there are all that many anatomy textbooks lying around open to the correct page that he can peek at.

“I don’t know,” Ben says, glancing up at the ceiling, where several dozen feet of dirt and rock stands between them and the rest of their family. “Want me to check?”

Klaus tilts his head, and nods slightly. He taps the end of the humerus against the floor, the knob of bone at the end worn from years of doing just that. He scrapes the bone along the floor, then taps it again, then does a few more scrapes and taps.

It was Klaus’ idea for the both of them to learn Morse code, through the slightly circuitous method of Ben finding a board with the entire code pinned up on the wall of a Boy Scout lodge a half-dozen blocks away, memorizing it, then teaching it to Klaus. But it _does_ help to have a fallback method of communication in case Klaus is rendered unable to speak - he’s promised to not _deliberately_ do that, but his meltdowns _do_ have a tendency to end with him having more injuries than he started with.

Ben hates that, but like most everything else, he can’t do much about it.

“Alright,” Ben says, standing. “Be back in fifteen minutes.”

Klaus nods again, and Ben knows he starts counting as soon as he’s alone in the cell. Ben hurries upstairs, because being late to return is the leading cause of Klaus’ meltdowns, and even when that _doesn’t_ happen Ben just feels all-around awful for breaking his word.

Going upstairs reveals that it’s later than he thought. The sky is dark outside, and Ben blinks at it, mildly discombobulated. Huh, they must have lost track of time playing callbones.

Wandering through the house doesn’t reveal much. No one’s in their rooms yet, but it can’t be long before they turn in. Ben checks a clock, and - yep, later than he thought. Well, then. He wonders what he missed.

Diego is wandering around the halls, and Mom is in her usual spot in front of her paintings, but Ben can’t find anyone else. They might not even be here, although Ben can’t think of where else Luther might go and _Pogo_ is definitely still here.

Alright. Mission accomplished. Ben heads back towards the basement entrance, because even if he _could_ just sink through the ground he always has the nagging fear that he’ll miss the bunker and be unable to find his way out of the dirt. That’s not his _worst_ fear, but it’s pretty high up there.

And then -

\- by the front door -

\- there’s a metallic _clunk._

Ben pauses. He turns.

Frowning, he walks down the hallways that leads to the foyer. When he gets there he sees -

Burglars. Two of them, a man and a woman. Wearing suits, for some reason. One of them is holding some kind of gadget that is probably the reason the front door’s knob is lying on the ground. The two of them look around cautiously.

“....Really?” Ben says, raising an unseen eyebrow. “Do you even know who _lives_ here? This is the worst target in the _city._ I think you might need to get your IQ checked.”

They disregard his excellent advice, and instead advance further into the house. The man pauses briefly at the entrance to the parlor, looking at the portraits over the mantel.

“Cha-Cha,” the man says.

“Cha-Cha?” Ben parrots in confusion.

The woman comes over to his side and looks grimly at the portraits. “Which one is our kid?” she asks.

“....Excuse me?” Ben says.

“Probably whichever one we find that matches their portrait,” the man says.

Ben is getting a _very_ nasty feeling in his gut. Not the Horror, but this almost might be worse.

“Why are you looking for Five?” Ben says quietly. Because, well. They _could_ be looking for Klaus, but Ben really doubts it.

Naturally, they don’t answer him. They turn and leave, venturing further into the house. Ben swallows, and can’t do anything more than follow them.

They make it all the way to Luther’s bedroom before Diego walks down the hall.

For one wild, desperate moment Ben has the crazy hope that they’ll ignore him, that Diego won’t notice them and he’ll walk on by and they’ll give up and _leave._ Ben doesn’t know if Five is even _here,_ and even if he were _surely_ they can’t mean to search the entire Academy for a guy who can teleport away the instant he knows they’re coming.

But then the two put on some kind of masks, inflated by something, and they pull out _guns_ and Diego is just _standing there_ and -

Ben swears his heart stops at the first gunshot, no matter that he doesn’t have a heart anymore.

Everything happens very quickly, after that.

Diego engages the man in hand-to hand, and even though he’s clearly the better fighter it’s like watching one of his and Luther’s fights. The man takes all of Diego’s hits like a sinkhole, and it’s all Diego can do to keep him from gathering enough focus to hit back. Thank _fuck_ the woman doesn’t dare try to to shoot with her patner in the way, and Diego manages to disengage by flinging himself into a nearby hallway, and down onto the first level.

Then there’s a frankly excessive amount of gunfire, and goddammit if no one else hears this and comes running Ben is going to _scream -_

The arrival of Allison and Luther could not be better timed.

The combatants are all separated a dozen seconds later, but Ben still can’t bring himself to breathe. Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ Not once since he’s died has he ever regretted his inability to release the Horror, he always regarded it as one of the few blessings of death, but _now_ he wants _nothing_ more than to kill these two fuckers as quickly as possible. As angry as Ben is at his living siblings, he doesn’t want them dead, god, please don’t let them _die._ They won’t make a miraculous return like Five, or reanimate like Klaus, and if they do stick around like Ben it won’t be a good life, _he should fucking know._

There’s a brief burst of gunfire, and then the two intruders split up. If Ben had a pulse, it would skyrocket. He looks wildly between them, terrified of losing sight of one of them and only learning later of whatever horrors they perpetrate. Which one should he follow?

He waits too long, and it’s decided for him. The woman scurries off, and Ben doesn’t see which way she goes, which means he darts behind the man as he ducks into the parlor. He looks around for - a weapon, Ben presumes, since the gun is nowhere in sight. Thanks to Dad’s insane decorating sense, he finds one within a handful of seconds. A mace. Which is at least less lethal than a gun, so Ben doesn’t really _relax_ but he does thank god that Dad keeps the guns elsewhere in the house.

“Hello?”

Ben

goes

still.

“No,” he breathes, barely a whisper.

“Guys, is everyone okay?” Vanya calls, her voice coming closer. “Hello? Guys?”

She steps into the parlor, and Ben can only watch as the man bears down on her.

She ducks the first swing, but the second connects and sends her _crashing_ down on a table. Ben hears a noise and realizes it’s coming from him, but he’s too busy clawing at the man, trying to attack him, pull him away from Ben’s _sister,_ that’s his _sister don’t you touch her get away from her get away get away get AWAY -_

And then Luther comes, and Ben has never been so glad to see Number One.

Luther and the man are fighting, out in the foyer, but Ben only has eyes for Vanya, who scrambles off the table and hides against a doorframe, and oh god, she’s bleeding. She’s bleeding, her _head_ is bleeding, and Ben hovers close to her trying to see the damage because she hurt her _head,_ her head is bleeding, what if it’s bad, what if it kills her, _that’s how Klaus died, what if she dies -_

There’s shouting, and crashing, and a scream of _“LUTHER!”_ that sends a bolt of lightning down Ben’s spine. It seems to do the same to Vanya, because she runs out of her hiding place and swings around to look into the foyer.

And there’s - there’s a chandelier, and _Luther_ is underneath, and Ben’s heart would have stopped a dozen times over tonight if he still had a heart, but then Luther is moving, and standing, and Ben sags in pure _relief_ because he’s _okay._

They’re all okay.

Well, mostly. Ben makes sure to give Luther a good look-over, but he isn’t bleeding, so then he goes back to looking at Vanya. She’s standing obligingly still, which is enough to see her head injury doesn’t look _too_ serious. She should still get it checked out, though, it could cause a concussion. It could cause worse than a concussion, no matter how okay it looks now.

Ben is so busy worrying he doesn’t notice Allison coming over until Vanya looks at her and says a soft, stunned, “Did you know?”

“No,” Allison says, equally stunned.

Ben blinks. “Know?” he echoes. “Know what?”

They don’t elaborate, though, just sending quick glances at the staircase Luther went up. Ben looks at it in puzzlement, but no answers are forthcoming.

Thankfully, though, Allison quickly moves on to more important things, like checking on Vanya’s head injury. She runs through the standard concussion test, and Ben is only partially satisfied when Vanya passes it. That and an icepack are all the help that happens before Diego comes back, though.

Diego’s blowup isn’t all that unexpected. Honestly, he does have a point. He makes it in the worst and cruelest way possible, but the fact does remain that Vanya nearly _died_ tonight. Ben doesn’t want her to be hurt by their brother’s words, but it’s better than her being _bodily_ hurt by the kind of people Ben and his siblings are used to fighting.

No matter how lonely he gets sometimes, Ben doesn’t want _any_ of his siblings to join him. Not now, not ever. And despite his yearning to see them again, he knows Klaus feels the same way.

….Shit, _Klaus._

Ben sets off at a dead sprint back to the basement entrance, the Academy flying past him. He reaches the elevator shaft and jumps down, landing at the bottom with no inertia whatsoever. Then he runs down the length of the hallway, through the double doors and then into the cell where his brother is waiting.

Klaus looks up at him from the floor. “You’re late,” he observes.

Oh, thank fuck. No meltdown.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says. “There was - something happened.”

“What was it?” Klaus says, tilting his head.

“It -” the words tangle in Ben’s throat. How can he _describe_ what just happened? “It’s - complicated.”

Klaus waits patiently, face unchanging.

“Fuck,” Ben says, rubbing a hand over his face. He looks away, then back at Klaus. “Okay. I think - Five made some enemies while he was away. They came to the Academy tonight. No one got badly hurt, but - it was close. It was really close.”

A look of _alarm_ lights up Klaus’ face, more intense than anything Ben has seen since Luther’s accident. Klaus pulls himself to his feet and stares intently at Ben, his single eye blazing with focus.

“Are they okay?” Klaus asks.

“Yeah,” Ben says, neglecting to mention Vanya’s head injury. Considering how _he_ reacted, he doesn’t want to see how Klaus would take it. “Yeah, they’re all okay, just some bruises. But they were very lucky.”

“Oh,” Klaus says, worry on his face. “That’s….bad.” He looks around the cell. “I need to get out of here soon. I want to help them.”

“I….” Ben trails off, not sure if he’s about to say _I don’t know you’ll ever actually get out of here_ or _I don’t think you could actually do anything to help even if you did._ Thankfully, his common sense gets the better of him, and he says neither. Instead, he settles on a lame “Yeah.”

“Do you think the bad guys will come back?” Klaus asks, expression already slipping off his face.

“....I don’t know,” Ben says. He swallows, and looks helplessly at his little brother. “They didn’t get anything out of this, much less what they wanted, so….I just don’t know, Klaus. I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben has been hanging out with a literal zombie for the past twelve years, so Luther's monkey body barely trips his radar.
> 
> So, what do you think Hazel and Cha-Cha will do now that this little venture didn't get them any results?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings at the end.

Diego just killed his own mother.

It still doesn’t feel quite real, which he knows is the shock talking. Because he definitely killed her. He cut open her arm and cut through her wires and she died looking at him and asking what he was doing and saying his _name._

He almost hopes he never fully processes that. He can’t imagine how much it’s going to hurt when he does. He already feels like he can’t bear to live with himself.

The parlor is empty. It’s just Diego now. Allison is probably off to stand outside Luther’s door like a maiden from a romance novel, and Vanya left. Which is for the best, honestly. Diego wasn’t joking when he said that to her. There’s a goddamn _reason_ she never went out with them into the field - hell, Klaus barely went out with them, when he was still around.

It’s just common sense. Diego, Luther, Allison, Five too - they can _fight._ They have powers that are all _suited_ for fighting. They have an edge over normal combatants, which gives them as close to a guarantee as they can get in this world that they’ll come out of a fight alive. When someone doesn’t have that, it becomes so much less certain. People get hurt, like Klaus, like Vanya, like -

Like Mom.

Diego has to sit down when his legs stop supporting him, falling into one of the stupid fancy overpriced chairs. The room is silent, but the echoes of gunshots still ring in his ears, and his mind replays Mom’s last words over and over in his head, and Diego thinks this might actually be Hell.

His family - if they can still even be called that - is shrinking. First they lost Five, then Klaus, then Ben, and then they all went their separate ways and they did lose each other, didn’t they, or maybe they were already lost before then, the moment Ben died, or maybe even sooner when Klaus ran, or maybe they were doomed the moment Five stuck that knife into the table.

And now - now Dad is gone. Diego never knew whether to consider Dad a part of the family, because he damn well knew Dad himself didn’t. But the fact remains that Diego had a father one week ago - a shitty excuse for a human being, much less a father, but a father nonetheless - and now he doesn’t.

Five came back, but apparently he’s being _hunted,_ tracked down by some shadowy people for reasons he won’t explain and refuse to have assistance for. The thought makes Diego’s heart _twist,_ because god, they just got Five back. They _just_ got him back. And even if he doesn’t seem all that interested in them, in rekindling the idea of a family, just knowing he’s _alive_ and _here_ and _safe_ is - enough. That’s enough. But it turns out it probably won’t stay that way for long, because there are people after his younger-older brother and if the past _three_ incidents in as many days is any indication Diego doesn’t think they’ll stop until he’s dead. And then there won’t be any more miracles, any more shocking returns, because even Five can’t shrug off bullets.

And then Mom.

Mom, who was always there for them growing up. Who always did her best to take care of them, even when they were all under the thumb of an abusive madman. She cooked and cleaned and patched them up, sure, just like she was programmed to, and Diego is grateful for that. But it was the other stuff that showed him how she was her own person. When she gave in and read them one more story before bed. When she hugged him, strong arms wrapping around him and keeping him safe, because he knows damn well that Dad would have never programmed her to give physical affection. When she learned all their favorite foods and made it whenever they were feeling down, or after a particularly brutal mission or training session. When she patiently sat with him for hours and taught him how to coax words to come out smoothly.

And now she’s dead. Because Diego killed her.

She was degrading. He knows that now. And he knew, the moment he saw the cross-stitch, that she couldn’t - they couldn’t fix her. None of them can. _Dad_ could, if he were here, but even if he was still alive Diego knows he wouldn’t bother. So she was - she was really gone. And the kindest thing he could do, the _only thing he could do for her,_ was to make it peaceful. Make it quick. Don’t let her see all her remaining children come up to her and tell her she needs to die. Just….just him.

Diego gets up from his chair. He needs to - he doesn’t know what he needs to do. But all of a sudden he can’t bear staying here, can’t bear sitting in this tomb of a house. He lost well over half his family in this house, he became an orphan in this house, he will go mad if he stays in this _fucking_ house.

He marches out of the parlor, not really considering a destination in mind but knowing he has to _leave._ He’s almost at the door when he hears a quiet, “Master Diego?”

He stops. Turns.

Pogo limps out of the hallway, and hesitance is not an unfamiliar expression to see on the old chimp’s face but Diego hasn’t really ever seen him looking _afraid_ before. Honestly, Pogo was always nearly as invincible as Dad.

But here he is, looking around the destroyed foyer with confusion and no small hint of fear.

“Might you be able to tell me what happened here?” Pogo asks. “I heard - quite a bit of noise earlier. Gunshots. Crashing. Is everyone alright?”

Oh. Right.

“Yeah, everyone’s fine,” Diego says. “A couple of maniacs broke in, sounded like they were looking for Five. Shot up the place. We’re okay.” Most of them, anyways. But Mom wasn't killed by the _intruders,_ was she.

“Oh dear,” Pogo says, looking around the destruction. “Well, that was - very bold of them.”

“Yeah,” Diego says. He doesn’t want to think about it, but he can’t stop. Attacking the Umbrella Academy, especially when most of them are actually _present,_ oozes of both arrogance and determination. They’re good, they’re very good - both of them walking away at the end of the fight after going up against One through Three shows that. Diego isn’t even sure they didn’t come out on top of that one. And they’re very, very obviously not going to stop until they manage to find Five and kill him.

That thought makes Diego want to raid Dad’s bar and not stop until it runs dry.

“Do you know why they were looking for Master Five?” Pogo says, shifting his stance. Diego wonders how much mobility he has now, and how much he’s going to lose over the next few years. Diego looked up chimpanzee lifespans a while back, just on a whim, and the answer was pretty grim. As much as Diego doesn’t particularly like Pogo, he was a fixture in their lives, their whole childhoods. The thought of his eventual death is - disquieting.

But. Well. It’s pretty on brand for this week. There’s probably something horribly ironic about the fact that when they were children, it was the children who kept dying or leaving, and now that they’re adults, it’s the adults’ turn.

“No,” Diego says, pressing his lips together. “I cornered him, earlier today, but he weaseled out of answering. Says he can handle it himself.”

Pogo looks around the destruction with a dubious expression.

“Yeah,” Diego says.

“Are you going to search for him?” Pogo asks, glancing at the door Diego is clearly pointed towards.

Diego lets out a deep breath. To be perfectly honest, he was planning on going to Eudora’s house and waiting on her porch, wallowing in his own guilt and anger and helplessness all night and waiting for her to come out in the morning and offer the slightest scrap of sympathy. He doesn’t want it from his siblings, not when they don’t really feel it. Not when they just consider Mom to be a _machine_ that’s just been shut off, instead of a person, their _mother,_ who is now _dead._

Eudora won’t react like that. And sure, any sympathy will just compound his guilt more, and she likely won’t offer _much_ of it, because even if she does still care about him on some level they were over a long time ago. They’re exes now - they banter, they argue, there’s some flirting (mostly from him, but she doesn’t really ever seriously tell him to stop, so Diego is going to cling to that as long as he can), but they aren’t a part of each other’s lives any more. Showing up on her porch and asking for comfort after his mother died (after he _killed her_ ) is the most he’s reached out to her after they broke up.

He wants to do that. He really, really wants to.

But Pogo has a point about Five. There are some dangerous people after him. Even if the Umbrella Academy is a tattered, broken thing by now, defeating them is no mean feat. Five might be able to stay ahead of them, might even survive an encounter with them once or twice, but he’s only human. They’ll get him eventually.

Whether or not he wants it, Five needs help.

And no matter how hopeless Diego might feel about it, he’s going to try his best.

“Yeah,” Diego says after a long moment. “Yeah, I am. Don’t suppose you have any idea where he went?”

“I’m afraid not,” Pogo says apologetically. “Ah, your siblings may know? I believe Master Luther went with him on an errand yesterday.”

Well, it’s a start. Diego thanks Pogo and trudges up the stairs to their bedrooms. Halting outside Luther’s door, he eyes it.

The memory of Luther’s mutated upper half flashes through his mind again. Understandably, Mom’s - situation - knocked it right out of his head, but now that he thinks about it Luther left pretty quickly after it was revealed. Diego recalls his own shock - and, yes, disgust. Humans don’t - they don’t _look_ like that. Luther’s size alone was attention-drawing, but now that he knows what’s hiding underneath that overcoat Diego can’t help but feel massively uncomfortable with the idea of talking to his brother.

Funny, he didn’t think interacting with Luther could _get_ more awkward. Just goes to show that every time he thinks this family’s hit rock bottom, it turns out they’re just getting started.

Diego summons up his big-boy pants, though, and raps on the door.

No answer. He knocks again.

Still no answer.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Luther,” Diego says, rolling his eyes. “I know you’re in there. I need to ask you something.”

Still no answer, although Diego catches a slight creak. Luther is obviously in there, and it’s also obvious he’s hiding. Not a surprise - hiding is Luther’s favorite activity, right after playing at being the leader. He hides behind their number order, hides behind the Academy walls, hides from the truth of the abuse they suffered, and he _definitely_ hides behind Dad’s words. Every word Dad says might as well be solid titanium to Luther, and he’s used those words to build an impenetrable cage for himself that he says lets him be safe. Maybe he does feel safe, Diego doesn’t know. But he _does_ know that Luther is more of a child than Five ever could be, expecting that hiding from problems will make them go away.

Diego realized Luther is a lost cause a while ago, though. He has to focus on the brother he might still be able to save.

“I need to know where you went with Five yesterday,” Diego says. “Those guys are after him, we need to warn him.”

There’s a slight shift from within Luther’s room, and after a few seconds Luther says, reluctantly. “We went to a company called MeriTech. He - wanted to ask about a prosthetic.”

“A prosthetic?” Diego has heard more surprising things, but it’s still pretty weird. “Why?”

“I don’t know, he didn’t tell me,” Luther says.

Diego feels frustration bubble up inside of him. “Seriously? Jesus Christ, Luther, there are assassins after him, we need to know what he’s _doing._ ”

“Yeah, well, it’s been kind of a busy few days, Diego,” Luther says, an edge in his voice.

“Had your hands full swinging around from the treetops?” Diego snaps. Unbidden, the memory of Five earlier today surfaces - no matter that he’s apparently an adult, he looks like that same child who disappeared on them, small and young and _vulnerable._ He beat the first group that went after him, and the second, and they beat off the assassins tonight, but it just takes one bullet. Just one. And no matter what Five thinks, he can’t jump fast enough _every_ time. “This is our brother’s _life_ we’re talking about. Maybe show some interest - if Dad hasn’t forbidden that, of course.”

He turns around and storms off, not waiting to hear Luther’s response. There isn’t one forthcoming, though, the door silent as Diego walks away.

Fine. _Fine._ Diego can do this on his own. Of course he can. For once in his _fucking_ life, he’s going to actually try to preserve his family instead of letting it fall apart on its own, or actively breaking it himself, and _he is going to succeed._

He has to.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Klaus is used to boredom.

It’s always there. Even when he’s feeling other things, like sadness or anger or love or entertainment or that nice one that might be happiness but he’s not sure, he can’t remember the last time he didn’t feel at least a _little_ bored.

He knows it’s inevitable. His room isn’t very interesting, despite his best efforts. He likes his drawings, because they really are very nice, but he barely has any paint left in him and he wants to save that last bit in case there’s something special or important to draw. He knows every single nick and gouge in the walls, every patch and hole - he thinks there were things bolted into the walls before he was put in here, because there are regular round holes all around on the walls and Pogo never answered his question about why. He can fit a few of his smaller playing pieces into the holes, and that forms the foundation of a few of his games.

In terms of decorations, that’s it. In terms of things to do - well, he has his playing pieces. That’s pretty nice. He doesn’t know _what_ he’d do without those. And he has his clothing, which he’s used over and over to make a bunch of things to play with. And - he has Ben. If he had to, Klaus would trade everything else to keep Ben with him, because Ben is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, even if it feels wrong to feel good about his brother dying. But Ben has said over and over and over how happy he is to have found Klaus, so Klaus thinks it might be okay.

Boredom is still always there, though.

Klaus won’t ever say so to Ben, because that would just be ungrateful. But he’s still _so bored._ Especially when Ben is gone. Klaus hates when Ben is gone. The boredom is okay, manageable even, when Ben is around, but when he’s gone the seconds stretch out like taffy (Klaus hasn’t ever seen real taffy, but he thinks that’s the right metaphor) and minutes slog on for _ages._ And inevitably, Klaus starts remembering the time _before_ Ben, when Klaus was all alone for _real_ and did things he can’t remember and couldn’t understand and hated so much but he _needed_ to, he needed to, because the boredom and loneliness was crushing him like a boulder and it _never stopped_ and he wanted so so much to stop existing but he _never could._

He hates the boredom. He hates it so much.

However, he might have found something that’s worse than the boredom, and that’s worry. Worry about his siblings, up above him, walking around after being attacked in their _house._ And the bad guys might even come again.

He’s only felt like this once before, when Luther got in his accident. Ben brought him regular updates, and Klaus _begged_ Pogo to let him out so he could stay with his brother, but he still wasn’t allowed. Klaus was so _angry_ about that, but it never helped. And….there wasn’t much Klaus could do for Luther’s accident, so Klaus _guesses_ he didn’t _have_ to come out.

But now? Klaus can do something. He can _help._ And Dad is dead, and Pogo _said_ he could be let out soon, and surely that will be now, when his siblings are in danger and he can help them? He even has his eyepatch now, so he doesn’t scare them.

“Klaus?”

Klaus looks at Ben. “Yeah?”

“It’s your turn,” Ben prompts, raising an eyebrow.

Klaus looks down at the pieces in his hand. “Oh. Okay.”

“Are you -” Ben pauses. “What’s wrong, Klaus? Is it the attack?”

Glad his brother can read him so well, Klaus nods. “I want them to be okay.”

“They _are_ okay, right now,” Ben says, and his voice is gentle. Klaus likes that tone. It makes him feel warm and safe, even though he can’t quite remember what warmth feels like and he’s had _entirely_ too much safety since he died. Ben makes those things feel nice, though, and he does it with only his voice. It’s like he got a replacement superpower when he died and lost the Horror, and Klaus, for one, has no complaints.

He does, however, have to correct Ben. “They won’t be okay forever, though,” Klaus points out. “You said the bad guys might come back.”

“I don’t think they will today,” Ben says. “They took a hell of a beating last night. They’ll need time to recoup, heal up.”

“....Can you check on the others again, please?” Klaus says, shifting. Because even if what Ben is saying makes sense, he could also be talking about their siblings. They’ll be off-balance for a while too, and _anything_ could happen in that time.

Ben’s face softens, Klaus basks in that look. No one hardly _ever_ looked at him like that when he was alive, like they would do anything for him. It’s _amazing,_ being loved.

“Okay,” Ben says. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay,” Klaus nods, and watches as Ben easily walks through the wall, like it isn’t even there.

Starting his mental countdown, Klaus stands up and goes over to the door. He presses his hand against it and looks out the window. He imagines being able to turn into a ghost himself - he’s already dead, it’s just that he’s stuck in this _stupid_ dumb body and he can’t figure out how to not be - and pushing past the walls. He imagines stepping out of his room for the first time in over sixteen years, and going down the hall, and taking the elevator upstairs, and walking through the Academy until he meets one of his siblings.

Ben has described them. He’s described them very precisely, down to the clothes they wear whenever he sees them. He has to rely on magazines and TV for Allison and could only relay Luther’s transmissions once he went to the moon and obviously there was nothing about Five until he came back, but he did his best, and Klaus has done _his_ best to visualize his siblings as they are now.

He wants to see them. He wants to _see_ them, for real, and see if the pictures in his head are at all like what they really are now. He wants to look at them, and go up to them, and he wants so so much to have them smile and hug him and say _“There you are, we missed you so much.”_

Klaus is so lost in his head that he almost misses the doors to the basement opening. He blinks, and Pogo steps into the room.

Tilting his head, Klaus blinks. Huh. Pogo came by two weeks ago for his usual monthly visit, and then several days ago to tell Klaus about Dad’s death, and then again the day before last, after the funeral. And now, apparently. This is a _lot_ of visiting, for him.

Pogo hesitates when he sees Klaus looking out of the door’s window at him, and then presses the intercom. “Hello, Master Klaus,” he says.

“Hello,” Klaus parrots. “Why are you here again?” A thought hits him like a lightning bolt. “Are you here to let me out?”

“....I’m sorry, Master Klaus, but not quite yet,” Pogo says.

Klaus feels that old, familiar disappointment. He swallows it down like always, but this time there’s the new worry underneath, and that doesn’t go down as easily.

“The house got attacked,” Klaus says, trying to explain why this is important, important enough to let Klaus go early, more important than any other time he’s asked. “The bad people might come back to look for Five again. They might hurt my siblings. I want to help keep them safe.”

Pogo looks alarmed. “Master Klaus, you cannot fight!”

“I can,” Klaus says. “My powers -”

“Do not allow you to _heal,_ ” Pogo interrupts. Rude. “Even the smallest damage you take will never repair itself. Do you understand? If I were to let you out, you would accumulate more and more injuries until even your power cannot keep you moving. And that would only happen faster if you decided to _fight!_ Your siblings are perfectly capable of dealing with the situation on their own, Master Klaus. You would be of no help.”

Klaus is silent.

“Do you understand?” Pogo says after a few seconds.

Klaus doesn’t move.

Pogo sighs. “I truly am sorry, my boy,” he says. “I hope you can understand that this is for the best. And I wouldn’t worry about your siblings. They can take care of themselves.”

“If?” Klaus says.

Pogo blinks. “....If what?” he frowns. “Well, if they know what they’re dealing with, which rest assured they are looking into.”

“No,” Klaus says. “You said if.”

“....I’m sorry?”

“No,” Klaus repeats. “Not sorry. You said _if._ You said - _if_ you were to let me out.”

Pogo goes still.

Klaus stares at him.

“You’re going to let me out, aren’t you?” Klaus says. “You said you were. You said _not yet,_ but you never said _if._ You always say not yet. That means you _will,_ though. Right? Dad said so.”

“Master Klaus….” Pogo says, looking pained.

“Please say it, Pogo,” Klaus says. He can feel the panic rising inside of him, the kind that fills him up and crowds out everything else, the kind that Ben calls his _meltdowns_ and is a very accurate name, because it feels like all his insides are melting inside of him. “Please. Say you’re going to let me out. It doesn’t have to be today. Just some day. Please say you’ll let me out.”

Pogo -

Pogo -

He -

doesn’t

speak.

Klaus feels faint, every second of silence growing louder and louder. His ears are ringing, he thinks, and his body feels all of a sudden entirely alien, not under his control, which should be completely impossible.

“I’m sorry, Master Klaus,” Pogo finally says, softly, looking Klaus right in the eye. “You can fulfil Sir Reginald’s plans just as well where you are right now, and the risk is….too great.”

No. No, no, no no no nonononono _pleasenoplease._ The world is spinning, the lights too bright, and Pogo might be saying something else but Klaus can’t hear him, can’t hear anything, the entire world is silent and still and always will be, it will never change because he’s _never leaving here,_ never never never, he won’t ever step outside or go upstairs or _see his siblings_ and he’ll just stay in this basement forever and ever and ever and always never growing old and never changing and never living always dead and trapped and alone fOrEVer anD EVeR ANd evER AnD EveR -

His power _surges,_ making the bones in the corner rattle and the leather from his shoes ripple and he - he -

He feels a tug towards Pogo.

Pogo, who is old.

Pogo, who isn’t dead, but isn’t far from it.

Pogo, who is going to _leave him in here._

Without thinking, without realizing, without using anything other than his own instincts, Klaus _yanks_ on the presence in front of him, and he can control dead things easy as breathing but alive has always been out of reach, except there’s _parts_ of Pogo that are dead, everyone has some dead parts, he just never realized it before, but it’s so clear now, it’s so _obvious,_ and Klaus digs his fingers in and _pours_ his power into those little cracks and crevices that are dead and rotting and makes them grow grow _grow -_

And then

suddenly

abruptly

Pogo

falls

down.

And he isn’t moving.

And Klaus knows that he’s -

he’s -

Klaus steps back, the room silent.

It’s a different silence than before. That one was full of forever-and-ever stretching out before him, packed with all of infinity. This silence - this silence is empty.

Outside the door, lying crumpled on the ground, is Pogo’s -

Pogo’s -

He can’t - _can’t think it, it’s not true, if he doesn’t think it it’s not true -_

Then Ben steps in through the door.

He stops.

Stares.

And his eyes _snap_ up to meet Klaus’ own eye.

That - that’s enough to shock Klaus into stumbling back from the window, scrambling away from the door, away from Pogo, away from _Ben,_ because oh god, oh god, he killed Pogo, _he killed Pogo,_ he killed Pogo and Ben will hate him, Ben will _leave_ him, he’ll be so angry at Klaus and he’ll leave and never come back and Klaus will be alone and stay that way because _no one knows he’s here Pogo was the only one who knows he’s here_ and Klaus will stay locked in this room for ever and ever and always and no one will ever know or care and _nonononopleaseI’msorryI’msorrypleasenopleaseI’msorrynono **Dadplease-**_

“-aus, Klaus, please calm down, it’s okay, I’m right here, it’s okay, Klaus, I’m right here, I’m staying right here, just listen to my voice, Klaus. Klaus, it’s okay -”

Slowly, the words trickle through to Klaus.

With agonizing slowness,

Klaus

lifts

his

head.

Ben breaks off his talking, sending a flutter of panic through Klaus’ chest, but instead of giving him a cold look Ben instead leans forward and -

smiles?

“Hey,” he says softly, in that tone that’s the next best thing to a hug. “Hey, Klaus, look at me. Are you with me?”

Klaus - Klaus doesn’t know what’s going on all that well, but he can answer that. He nods, jerkily.

“Okay,” Ben breathes. “Okay, good. That’s good, Klaus. Now, you don’t have to right now, but can you tell me - what happened?”

Klaus flinches.

“You don’t have to,” Ben says, firm like he rarely ever is. “You don’t have to, it’s okay.”

Klaus hesitates, and part of him screams not to tell, because Ben will be angry at him and _leave_ and he’ll be alone fOrEVeR, but another part of him says Ben will be angrier if Klaus waits to tell him, that maybe Klaus can convince him to stay if he confesses right now but if he waits Ben will be even angrier when he learns the truth and won’t bother to listen to apologies.

“I -” Klaus says, and it comes out as a whisper. “I killed him.”

Ben rears back in shock. “What?”

“I’m sorry!” Klaus blurts frantically, scrambling to make Ben stop looking like that, shocked and horrified, ready to turn and run away from Klaus and never come back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I don’t know what I did, I got mad and upset and I used my power and then he fell and I’m sorry please don’t leave me I’m sorry!”

“I won’t leave you,” Ben says immediately. “Of course not, I’ll never leave you, Klaus.”

The words are enough to freeze Klaus stock-still, wide-eyed and staring.

Then Ben blinks. “Oh. Wow, Jesus christ. I didn’t know you could….oh god,” Ben looks horrified. “Oh god, Pogo was the only person who knew you’re down here.”

Klaus swallows, and if he were still alive he would probably start crying. He nods.

“No,” Ben says, looking sick. He twists to stare out the window. “No, no, no.”

Klaus squeezes his eye shut because - because even if Ben is telling the truth about not leaving, Klaus just killed Pogo. Pogo, the one and _only_ person who can - _could_ \- let him out of this room. The only person who could tell other people about him.

He’s going to stay in here. Forever.

And maybe it won’t be so bad if Ben is staying too, maybe it’ll be okay, but Klaus - Klaus always thought he’d get to come out. That one day Dad would finally say okay, that Pogo would give in to his begging, that he could go upstairs and see the sky and speak with his _siblings_ again.

And now he can’t.

“Klaus,” Ben says.

Klaus looks up at him, but Ben isn’t looking at him. Instead, Ben is standing, looking out the window, his eyes fixed on - Pogo.

“Klaus, make him let you out.”

For one long, long second, the words don’t make sense.

Then they do.

_“What?”_ Klaus flinches back.

Ben looks at him, a flicker of disquiet in his eyes, but his voice is strong and resolute. “Use him to open the door.”

“I - I can’t, _no_ -” Klaus says.

“Klaus,” Ben says, kneeling down next to Klaus and staring at him, unblinking. “Listen to me. If you don’t use Pogo to open that door, _you are never getting out of here._ Period. I know you don’t want to, and I’m so sorry, but _you need to do this._ ”

“No,” Klaus whines, high and scared. “No, please, I don’t want to, I don’t -”

“Do you want to see our siblings again?”

Klaus goes still.

“You can see them again, Klaus,” Ben says. He swallows, and he looks upset for some reason, but he keeps talking. “They’re just upstairs, and you can go and see them and talk to them and - and they _miss_ you, Klaus, they miss you just as much as you miss them, and they’ll be so happy to see you again.”

“Really?” Klaus whispers.

“Yes,” Ben says. He looks like he’s about to cry. “Yes, Klaus, I promise.”

Klaus opens his mouth. He looks down at the ground.

“Do -” he mumbles. “Do you think - they might - hug me?”

“Yeah,” Ben says. Klaus thinks he really is crying now, but he doesn’t want to look. “Yeah, Klaus.”

“Oh,” Klaus says. He can’t remember what hugs are like. He just knows that they’re one of the nicest things in the world.

Carefully, Klaus gets to his feet.

He walks over to the door, and looks out the window.

And then -

easy as breathing

\- Pogo’s corpse rises from the floor.

Klaus bites his lip hard enough that the flesh parts under his teeth. He doesn’t pay that much attention, though. Instead, he pours all his focus into Pogo, making him move closer to the door.

Ben phases through the wall, and looks critically at the door lock. He sticks his head back in and gives instructions. It takes a couple minutes, especially since Pogo isn’t very strong and the lock is very heavy, but Klaus _pushes_ and flinches as he feels several of Pogo’s bones break at the strain.

But he keeps pushing. And then -

The lock moves.

And the door

shifts.

Klaus is so startled he drops Pogo on the ground, and the door halts against the obstruction. Klaus stares at - at the _crack._

It’s - there’s - it’s as if the _world_ has suddenly started falling apart. There’s a _crack_ in the _world._

“Klaus.”

Eye wide, Klaus looks up at Ben.

“Klaus,” Ben says, and he reaches out a hand to hover over Klaus’ shoulder. He looks like he’s about to cry again, but different from before. This time he looks - happy? “Klaus, go on.”

Mutely, Klaus stares at the crack. Then, almost robotically, he approaches. His fingers touch the edge, carefully, as if it might burn him. When it doesn’t, he rests his hand against the door.

He pushes it open further.

And

he

takes

a

step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: murder, fear of abandonment, zombification.
> 
> So! ^-^ Who saw that one coming? Be honest.
> 
> Since I didn't want to have to write more of Pogo's POV, his reasoning might be confusing in this chapter, but it's basically that Pogo totally bought Reginald's party line about keeping Klaus in the basement for his own good, and genuinely thinks Klaus is safer in there. He believes that he can keep Klaus in there _and_ fulfill Reggie's Grand Plan, because Klaus' only real part in such is summoning Reginald to ~~speak~~ scold his wayward children and inform them of the details of the coming apocalypse. And honestly, that would actually work - provided, you know, that Pogo could convince the other sibs to leave Klaus in there.
> 
> Yeah, he was _really_ deluded about that.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings at end.

Diego comes back to the Academy with his tail between his legs, frustration burning brightly in his gut, and a powerful urge to drink until he’s insensible.

Five is not at MeriTech. He’s not anywhere near MeriTech, in fact. Neither is he anywhere near any number of places in the city, including libraries, universities, a bunch of coffee shops, or other prosthetics companies.

Which means Diego is very, very grumpy.

He stalks into the Academy, his body demanding that he get some fucking _sleep._ But Mom’s b- Mom is still under this roof, and he can’t sleep here. Even just setting foot in the Academy again, knowing _she’s dead I killed her,_ is almost too much to bear.

But. He does need to find more clues about Five’s location. Searching his brother’s room is such a long shot it’s basically worthless, but it’s all he can come up with now that every other lead has proven fruitless.

The morning light streams in through the windows as Diego makes his way to Five’s room. When he gets there, he finds that his mood _can_ plummet even further.

Luther looks up from where he’s going through Five’s shelves. “Diego,” he says, straightening. “Did you find him?”

“No,” Diego says shortly. “Not yet.”

“Damn,” Luther curses quietly. Then he hesitates. “Um. Do you know about Mom?”

Part of Diego wants to snap at him _Oh, you’re calling her that now? Now that you didn’t have to turn her off, you’ve **graciously** allowed her to be Mom again?_ But fighting over such a thing just feels….draining. He can’t bring himself to talk about her, not now.

“Guess you got what you wanted,” he says instead. “One way or another.”

Luther doesn’t answer, looking awkwardly to the side, and Diego feels anger bubble up inside of him.

“Well,” Luther says. “Um, I’ve been looking through Five’s things, and I don’t have an idea of where he’s gone yet.”

“Yeah,” Diego says, heading out the door. He can’t be in a room with his brother any more, even if there is a chance of a clue in here. “You keep doing that.”

“What, you’re going to find him yourself? Save the day?”

“It’s what I do,” Diego says, the words ashes in his mouth.

“Funny, I thought you mopped floors.”

The words are snide, deliberately calculated in a way Luther usually isn’t. Diego stops, and turns slightly.

Luther can’t know how much that hurts. He doesn’t look smug enough to know he’s landed a hell of a hit, the thing that keeps Diego up at night, the knowledge that for all he tries, for all he does, he can never do enough. He can never save the people that are truly important.

“And what do you do?” Diego says, the words barbed and sweet on his tongue, and he almost relishes the chance to hurt his brother, the one who outlasted all their others and never fucking deserved to. “Sit? On the moon, for four years, waiting for orders? Keep being a loyal soldier after everything our father did to you?”

“What, you mean save my life?” Luther says. There’s a challenge in his tone, a hint of warning.

That makes Diego’s blood spike. Because even now - _even now,_ Luther is defending their father. After _everything._ After years of torture disguised as training, after pitting them against each other until they ripped each other to pieces, after treating them as experiments and playthings and building blocks in a monument to his ego, after driving two of their brothers away and one into an early grave, Luther _still_ defends him.

Clearly he doesn’t care about any of _that,_ though, so Diego hones in on where he knows it’ll hurt. “No, I mean turn you into a monster.”

Diego savors the expression on Luther’s face. It doesn’t make him happy, but Diego is pretty sure he’ll never feel happy again, so this is probably the next best thing. It quiets some of the storm inside of him, like he’s scooping out all the hate-hurt- _rage_ that’s been there since last night - that’s been there for nearly seventeen years, if he’s being honest - and offloading it onto someone else. It’s not good, but it’s less painful than the alternative.

Luther punches through the wardrobe next to them. Diego knows he’s imagining it being Diego’s ribcage.

“Can’t hide it anymore, champ,” Diego says lowly, wishing he could just bleed out all this _fucking_ emotion inside of him, crying for blood.

“He had a difficult decision to make, and he made it,” Luther says, his voice impressively even, but Diego can hear the _murder_ lurking behind the words if Diego keeps pushing.

He should know by now that Diego _never_ stops pushing.

“Luther, we’re not thirteen anymore,” Diego says, choosing that age for a _very_ specific reason. Because all of them - _all_ of them - accepted Dad’s declaration that Five and Klaus were not to be looked for. That they’d come back once they ‘see the error of their ways.’ That investigation was pointless, and absurd, and above all _forbidden._

It’s the last order Diego ever obeyed from his father, and Diego regrets every day that he did.

“That’s what leaders _do,_ by the way,” Luther snarls.

“He sent you out there, all alone,” Diego says, his tone becoming soft and mocking, never looking away from his brother. “Almost got you killed.”

“Yeah, well, at least he was there,” Luther says. “Where were you? You and everyone else in this family? You walked out.”

Something in Diego -

snaps.

“Of course I walked out,” Diego says, raising his voice. “Of course I _fucking walked out,_ Luther, and thank _Christ_ that I did! You think I wanted to end up like you? Or any of the _rest_ of you? Dad didn’t give a _fuck_ when Five ran away except to _torture_ Klaus over it until he snapped, and then he wrote the two of them off as lost causes! And then Ben died, and he didn’t give a fuck then either!”

“Of course he cared, and Klaus isn’t dead!” Luther barks. “Jesus, Diego, he had to put the world first, but he was our _dad,_ you think he didn’t -”

“Oh, grow the _fuck_ up, Luther!” Diego shouts. “Klaus is dead in the gutter somewhere, and Dad never blinked an eye! Ben was torn apart and he didn’t say a _word!_ He didn’t even hesitate to send you on a mission that almost ended with you the same way, and then he pumped you full of poison that turned you into fucking _King Kong_ and you _still_ can’t see what a fucking _sociopath_ he is? You know, maybe whatever he did to you wasn’t random, maybe it just reflected what’s already going on inside you, because either way you’re the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”

That hits a nerve, Diego can tell, and he’s never been one to stop hitting. So he leans in slightly and asks, faux-casually -

“You know, I have a question. When you watch one of those nature shows - does it turn you on?”

“So is Pogo just an animal to you, too?” Luther challenges unexpectedly, that glint of murder still in his eye.

“Pogo’s not here,” Diego says. “I’m talking about you.”

“And here I thought you of all people would be okay if someone wasn’t totally human,” Luther taunts, and his face makes it pretty clear that he’s lying, but his next sentence wipes away all thought in Diego’s mind as he says, “You know, what with your stance on Mom and all.”

 _“Don’t talk about her,”_ Diego snarls.

“Why?” Luther says. “Have you figured out you’re the only one who cares that she’s -”

Diego throws the first punch.

It’s not the last.

**********

Twenty minutes later, Diego takes another swig of alcohol, his body aching.

Luther only got a couple glancing hits in, but a glancing hit from Luther means that Diego isn’t entirely sure all his ribs are in the right place. He shifts in his seat and grimaces. Yeah, definitely at least one cracked.

He gave as good as he got, though. That’s just about the only thing keeping him warm right now, fueling the smouldering fire in his belly.

Diego takes another long pull from the bottle, and then finally looks at the label. Some kind of scotch. Probably costs thousands. That might be real gold on the cap. No wonder it tastes like shit.

Klaus started drinking when he was around….seven or eight, Diego remembers. By the time he ran away, he was falling into weed and other gateway drugs, but alcohol was always his go-to vice. Years before he ran away, years before the Academy’s debut, even years before they got their names, Klaus was already an alcoholic.

They never asked why. Never even wondered, as far as he can remember.

He wants to ask why. He wants, so fucking much, to see his brother again, apologize for all the crap they put him through over his powers, learn about what went wrong and how to fix it. Diego’s never been good at fixing things, only breaking them, but he’d be willing to try if Klaus ever came home.

He won’t, though. Diego knows that.

The best case - the absolute best case - is that Klaus is currently living a regular normal life somewhere, happy and healthy and filled with such loathing for his family that he doesn’t come back even after seventeen years, even for their father’s funeral, even for _Ben’s_ funeral. If by some miracle that’s actually true, Diego can’t even blame him.

It’s probably not, though. Klaus is very likely either dead or subject to the myriad of dismal fates in store for homeless teenagers - drugs, homelessness, prostitution, whatever. Sometimes Deigo isn’t sure which one he’d prefer, death or a life of suffering.

He takes another pull of the bottle, and notices it’s almost empty. Diego leans forward over the bar and snags another one, not bothering to look at the label.

He’s not sure why Klaus is on his mind so much these days, ever since coming back to the Academy. Or, well. He knows. He just doesn’t want to think about it. Because Ben is very definitely dead, and Five has made his miraculous return, and it turns out Dad’s death was simply a result of Mom’s degrading hardware, so Klaus is the last remaining mystery of the Umbrella Academy. The one person they’ll never know the fate of, always tormented with the thought of _what if._

What if they didn’t shun him for his powers? What if they accepted him for who he was? What if they stopped Five from running away, eliminating Dad’s whole reason for the torture in the first place? What if they helped him, supported him, so that he might have been strong enough to make it through? What if they just flat-out stood up to Dad, said _no, stop hurting him?_

That one probably wouldn’t have ended well for them. But it might have told Klaus that they cared about him, that they didn’t want him being hurt. That no matter how much they wanted to know if Five was okay or not, they didn’t value him _more_ than Klaus.

Diego finishes off the scotch, and opens the new bottle.

He’s halfway through it, the liquor burning in his throat, when he hears a creak and looks up.

And

the

world

stops.

The bottle slips from his fingers. It falls to the floor and shatters. Glass and alcohol spray out in all directions.

Diego doesn’t notice. It’s not important. Instead, his eyes are fixed on -

on -

 _“Diego,”_ the nightmare in front of him says.

It looks like Klaus. It’s clearly supposed to be Klaus, young and small and the exact age his brother was when he ran away. Diego supposes his mind was inspired by Five coming back the same way, to throw this at him. Or it might be trying to tell him that Klaus must have died mere days after leaving, that this was his ultimate fate while Diego was obeying his father not to go looking.

Because it is dead. It’s definitely dead. It’s corpse-pale, absolutely bloodless, skin paper-white and pallid. It’s missing its right arm, and the wound is entirely bloodless but otherwise fresh and new, torn flesh surrounding a hint of bone. It lists to the side, enough to see a glimpse of _something_ carved deep into its remaining palm. There are dozens and dozens of other lacerations and scrapes littered all over its body, a lot of them clearly deliberately inflicted, all blatantly on display thanks to the fact that it’s only wearing an old rag tied around its waist. An eye patch covers its left eye, and Diego knows better than to hope it’s merely decorative. The shape of its head is subtly _wrong_ somehow, beyond just the clumps of hair missing, and there - there are small _holes_ around its mouth, and Diego takes one very long moment to realize that it _had its mouth sewn shut_ at one point.

And it’s -

it’s _smiling_ at him.

“Diego,” it says again, softly. It stares at him, and it -

takes

a

step

forward.

Diego breaks out of his paralysis and _lurches_ backwards, flinging himself off the bar stool and making an only halfway decent landing. His ribs jar and screech at the impact with the floor, and he might land on some of the glass, but he doesn’t give a fuck because his entire brain is consumed by fucking Klaxxon alarms screaming to _get the fuck away from this thing._

“Diego!” the thing says, its eye widening. It takes another step forward, and it _reaches out its hand,_ “Are you -”

“S-stay _back!_ ” Diego snaps, yanking out a knife and brandishing it at the thing.

It stills, and blinks at him. “Huh? Diego? What -”

 _“Stop saying my name!”_ Diego shouts half hysterically, and Mom’s dying moments replay themselves in his head again, only this time they’re being said by this _nightmare wearing his brother’s face._

The thing flinches. “I - I don’t - what’s wrong -”

“Sh-shut up!” Diego shouts, and anyone nearby can probably hear him shouting at nothing but _he doesn’t care._ “Just _shut up!_ G-go _away!_ You - you’re not - just _fuck off,_ I d-d-don’t want to see you, get the _f-fuck_ away from me!”

Dieog knows it won’t work, because it’s not like hallucinations ever listen to people. He doesn’t - he doesn’t even know why he’s hallucinating Klaus, especially like _this._ He’s never done this before. Then again, he’s never murdered his mother in his childhood hellhole and drunk himself stupid before either.

The thing flinches again, harder, and its face is - oh god, Diego knows that face, it’s _exactly_ how Klaus looked the last time Diego saw him, betrayal and confusion and fear. Except this is so much worse, because now his mind is telling him exactly what Klaus would look like with horrific, inhumane injuries, worse than any kind of carnage Diego’s ever seen in his life.

Is this what happened to Klaus? Is this really how he died? Was he - was he plucked off the street by some sick fuck who tortured him to death, just because? Did he die alone and scared and in pain, at the hands of someone who delighted in drawing it out as long as possible? Diego has wondered sometimes, late at night when he can’t force himself to stop thinking about it, and it’s like his brain has decided to bring all of that fear to life in the most horrific way imaginable.

“Diego,” the thing whispers, eye wide. “I - _please -_ ”

“I said _shut **up!**_ ” Diego shouts.

And then

somehow

his hand flicks forward

the knife springs out

and it plants itself

directly

in

the

thing’s

chest.

The thing doesn’t speak. Diego doesn’t either, shaking all over, staring at the knife he just threw.

Slowly, the thing looks down at the handle protruding from its chest. It doesn’t seem at all bothered by the injury, obviously, because it’s _not real,_ just some fucked-up hallucination cooked up by Diego’s mind after too many drinks, it’s _not_ his brother, it’s _not,_ he shouldn’t feel horror because he didn’t really just stab his brother in the chest, even if it looks incredibly, torturously real it’s _not._

“Get -” The words catch in his throat, choking him. _“Get away from me. Get the **fuck** away from me.”_

It’s a useless order, of course, because this hallucination is going to stay around regardless of what he wants. Even when he sobers up, even when he comes back to his sense, he’s going to be seeing this _thing_ in his nightmares every night from now on, right next to Mom’s too-still form and Ben’s shredded body.

The thing lifts its head agains, and it looks at him, and - god, its expression, jesus fuck, it looks like Klaus did in the weeks before he ran away, _exactly_ like that, staggering around the house with hollow eyes, soul in pieces, just skin and bones. A dead boy walking.

“Oh,” it says, softly. “Oh. Okay. I….okay.”

Then it turns, and walks away.

Diego waits, frozen, heartbeat pounding in his ears, staring at the doorway, waiting for it to return. For it to come back in, _smile_ at him again, say his name in that horrible mimicry of Klaus’ voice, reach out with icy fingers and _touch_ him. He wonders if it will kill him for failing to save Klaus. He wonders if he’ll even try to fight back, because honestly, if it looks at him like that again, if it calls his name like Klaus used to, if it tells him (rightfully) that it’s _his_ fault he died like this….Diego would probably slit his throat himself.

But the seconds stretch into minutes, and the thing doesn’t return.

And then

eventually

Diego sits down on the floor with a wobble

looks around the room

and start crying.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Ben has never wanted to commit fratricide before. But it seems like today is a historic day of firsts all around.

Klaus is - not responding. Ben has tried asking, comforting, and outright begging for a response, but Klaus is just sitting on the floor, arm curled around his knees, staring straight ahead and not focusing on anything even when Ben plants himself directly in Klaus’ eyeline. The knife - that _fucking_ knife - is on the floor in front of him.

Ignoring how he’s propped up, he could very easily be mistaken as being actually dead, instead of undead. He hasn’t moved in - some time, Ben hasn’t been keeping track.

Unbidden, Ben’s mind returns to when he first found Klaus in the bunker. His little brother was in no fit state to recognize Ben, and swung between catatonia, brief bursts of manic energy, and acting as if he was entirely okay while forgetting every interaction and conversation he had within minutes. Ben still isn’t sure which was more disturbing.

It took weeks to make Klaus recognize him. It took months for Klaus to manage a coherent, memorable conversation. It took literal, actual _years_ to reach the level of sanity he’s now at, and now -

Now Ben doesn’t know if all that work has been flushed down the drain.

Carefully, Ben reaches out a hand to hover it over Klaus’ shoulder. Usually, whenever he does that, Klaus goes very still and never takes his eye off Ben’s hand, like he can make Ben corporeal if he stares hard enough. Ben wishes he could, but they tried quite literally _everything_ to get Klaus out of that fucking cell.

Klaus doesn’t move a muscle.

Ben blinks, and if he could, he’d probably start crying. God. _God._ He’s wished to be physical again _so many fucking times_ over the years. For so many reasons. But even if the number-one reason was to let Klaus out of his cell, Ben would have even taken being permanently physical and trapped in there with Klaus, just for the ability to hug his little brother.

Klaus hasn’t been touched by another human in over sixteen years. And Ben hasn’t been touched in over a decade either, but Klaus always _loved_ physical contact. He couldn’t ever get enough, constantly asking for hugs and reaching out and begging, pleading with them for contact. Ben is ashamed to admit they rarely ever gave it to him. And he suspects half the reason Klaus lost his mind is that it couldn’t change. Eternally a child, eternally child _like,_ including the soul-deep yearning for human contact he couldn’t ever grow used to being denied. Ben is - Ben is used to never being touched now, even if he doesn’t like it, but Klaus….

Klaus can force himself to accept a lot of things, but it breaks his mind just a little more each time. Truly accepting, getting used to, the lack of such an essential thing?

Ben is pretty sure that would break him entirely.

Of course, being rejected - and not just rejected, but _attacked_ \- by one of his siblings might have done the trick anyways.

Diego is very, very lucky Ben can’t turn corporeal.

“Klaus,” Ben says quietly. “Klaus, please look at me.”

Predictably, Klaus doesn’t do anything. He just keeps staring ahead, sightlessly.

The worst part of it - the worst part of it is that Ben doesn’t even know _why_ Diego reacted that way. For fuck’s sake, _Klaus is back._ Ben knows - he _knows_ \- Diego wished for that. He knows Diego feels guilty for his part in that fateful meeting, he knows Diego is the most outspoken against what Dad did to Klaus. He knows that out of all their siblings, Diego was the one who would likely react the most strongly.

Well. Looks like he was right about that. In the worst possible way.

It pales in importance next to making sure Klaus’ mind doesn’t shatter like thin glass, but Ben wants to know what the _fuck_ made Diego think he could react like that. It must have been the shock of a lifetime to see Klaus standing there, not looking a day older than the last time they saw him - and minus an arm, no less - but that’s no excuse for _throwing a knife at him._ Ben decides to believe that Diego worked out that it wouldn’t genuinely harm him, because otherwise he will literally kill his brother. But god, didn’t Diego realize such a rejection would absolutely destroy Klaus?

When Ben first found Klaus, he was - it was the worst shock of his entire existence. Worse than dying, worse than realizing Five was gone for good, worse than _anything._ But even Ben didn’t scream insults at his little brother, tell him to _shut up, go away,_ and try to physically hurt him. God, he never once did that. He never would have forgiven himself if he did.

Ben hopes Diego realizes what he’s done, and that he never forgives himself. Ben certainly won’t.

The two of them sit there, in the room that’s indistinguishable from half the other rooms in the house, and Ben doesn’t try to coax Klaus into responding any more. If he’s going to come back, Ben’s tried enough to realize none of his efforts will help that along. And if he doesn’t….well.

Then he doesn’t.

Ben sits back, and, very quietly, starts singing.

**********

As far as Ben can determine, it’s almost three hours before Klaus stirs.

Ben’s head _snaps_ up at the movement, and his singing stutters to a stop - he’s kept it up the whole time, a benefit of not having a physical throat that can get sore. He holds his breath (even though he doesn’t actually need to breathe anymore) and stares at Klaus.

His little brother slowly looks around the room. Ben can tell, from the faintest microexpressions on his face, that Klaus is confused by his surroundings. Which is understandable, when he’s just spent the last sixteen years in the same place.

“Klaus,” Ben says.

Klaus’ eye lands on Ben, and blinks.

“Hi,” Klaus says after a few seconds. “Ben.”

“Hey,” Ben breathes, feeling an overwhelming rush of relief, so strong he momentarily forgets everything else. Klaus is - well, he’s not okay, obviously. But he’s not irretrievable. “God, Klaus, I was so scared.”

Klaus blinks again.

“....Why?” he says.

Ben hunches his shoulders, and considers how best to respond. He rarely ever keeps things from Klaus, and the things he does are mostly because he doesn’t know if Klaus’ fragile sanity can handle them. And he….doesn’t know if Klaus blocked out what just happened a couple hours ago to protect himself. Telling him might send the entire house of cards crashing down again.

“Do you remember why we’re here?” Ben settles on saying, looking around the room.

Klaus looks around blankly. “I got out of the room. I was….upset. And -” his eyes settle on the knife in front of him. “And - Diego, he -”

He breaks off, and his face twists like he’s about to cry, but of course he hasn’t been able to cry in almost seventeen years.

“Yeah,” Ben says, feeling that old familiar helplessness. “Yeah. I’m so sorry, Klaus. I’m so fucking sorry, I didn’t - I _never_ thought he’d do that.”

Klaus ducks his head to rest against his knees. In a small voice, he says, “He hates me.”

 _“No,”_ Ben says, and he isn’t actually sure if he’s trying to convince Klaus or himself. “No, Klaus, he doesn’t hate you, none of them hate you. I don’t know why he did that, I’m so sorry, but he doesn’t hate you. He - he missed you, Klaus, I promise he missed you.”

“Then why did he hurt me?”

Ben finds he doesn’t have an answer to that.

The silence stretches out, ugly and long, and Ben knows he should say something. Anything. But he can’t think of any kind of words that will make this better, erase what Diego has done.

Slowly, Klaus straightens up. Ben only just manages to prevent himself from wincing at the new wound in his chest. There’s no blood, of course, but the knife sank in nearly to the hilt.

God. Klaus is going to have to carry that forever. An eternal reminder of Diego’s rejection, always as fresh as the moment he got it.

“Should I go?” Klaus says.

“What?” Ben says, blinking.

“Should I -” Klaus hesitates, his face back to that familiar blankness. “Should I - go. Away.”

It takes a couple seconds to realize what he means.

“No!” Ben says, shocked. “What - Klaus, none of the rest of them even know you’re here yet.”

“But what if -”

“They won’t,” Ben says firmly. “They _won’t_ all react like that. I don’t know why Diego did, but - he was drinking, you saw him, and that must have made it worse. Even if they’re really shocked, _that’s_ not going to happen again.”

Klaus hesitates again.

“I - Klaus,” Ben says, biting his lip and shifting closer to his little brother. “Klaus, can you look at me?”

Slowly, Klaus looks up to meet his eyes.

Ben chooses his words with exquisite care, mindful of exactly how much Klaus trusts him versus how much he’s teetering on the edge, overwhelmed from everything that’s happened in the past several hours. “It’s okay if you don’t want to go and find them right now. It’s okay if you don’t want to go and find them in the next several days, even. But if you leave the Academy, you won’t be able to find any resources or get anyone to really help you. They - our siblings - they’ll want to help you, once they get over the shock of you showing up. I can’t promise they won’t be confused or alarmed or -” Ben swallows, “Or maybe even angry. I didn’t think Diego would react that way, so I can’t promise they won’t. But I swear, Klaus, once they adjust they’ll be so fucking happy you’re here.”

Klaus remains blank-faced. Ben sits back on his heels, blowing out a nonexistent breath. Well, he’s made his case as best he can. He’ll just have to hope Klaus sees fit to follow it. In the end, Ben can’t really - _do_ all that much for his little brother.

He wishes he could. He wishes - well, if he’s going back to the _source_ of it all, he wishes Dad wasn’t such an uncaring, all-encompassing force of destruction. But wishing _that_ would change is sort of like wishing the same of a hurricane. So Ben wishes Five hadn’t run away, or that they supported Klaus during what Dad subjected him to after, or that he was capable of turning corporeal. He - he’s even wondered, sometimes, if it might be better if Klaus’ powers didn’t work automatically on himself, if he was able to let go and travel on to whatever comes next. Ben isn’t exactly thrilled at the concept, but Klaus not even having the _choice_ is - wrong. Ben’s seen the damage it’s done to him.

But. Well. Ben can’t do any of that for him. All he can do is - talk, and spy, and try to keep his little brother sane.

Eventually, Klaus looks up at him.

“I want to stay here for the rest of the day. And night. But,” Klaus hesitates. “Tomorrow, I think I want to - go and - find one. Of them.”

Ben nods, and feels the dizzy lightness of relief spreading through him. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, that’s good. That’s great, Klaus. We’ll do that.” He pauses. “What do you want to do in the meantime?”

Klaus looks at him like Ben has just asked the most ridiculous question he’s ever heard. Then, pointedly, he looks around the room.

“Have you seen all the _stuff_ in here?” Klaus says, a hint of wonder in his tone. “I’m going to do - _everything._ Duh.”

Ben can’t help but let out a laugh.

“Fair enough,” he says. “Fair enough. Well, then. Let’s get started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: verbal abuse, assault, rejection, soul-crushing sadness.
> 
> To be clear: Ben genuinely has no idea why Diego reacted that way, or that Diego thought Klaus was a hallucination. He's grown so inured to Klaus' appearance that he forgets other people, uh, aren't.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings at end.

Allison presses her lips together and stares at the door Vanya just closed. She sighs.

“That could have gone better,” she mutters to herself.

Vanya’s apartment has no comment to offer.

To be fair, it also could have gone worse. There wasn’t any real bite to Vanya’s parting shot, and even if it stung a little Vanya _could_ have made it cut to the bone. Allison is….trying, but she knows damn well just how often she keeps falling short.

Because, well. She _has_ based her whole life on rumors.

Sighing, Allison stands and snags her coffee. She leaves the pastry she brought. Vanya can eat it later. Allison locks the door and closes it behind her, and stands in the hallway for a moment.

Admittedly, her relationship with Vanya is vastly improved compared to, oh, a week ago. Not that they actually _had_ much of a relationship a week ago - or, as Vanya pointed out, for the last twelve years.

Which is also fair.

However, Allison can’t help but be - concerned. Because Hollywood has trained Allison to develop an exquisitely precise creep-o-meter, and Leonard just keeps setting it off. It’s just a feeling for now. But Allison has learned to trust her feelings in cases like this.

If only Vanya would. But Allison has read her sister’s book, painful as it was. She understands a lot about Vanya that she didn’t when they were kids. Being alone like she was….Allison still doesn’t know whether Vanya was right to consider that more damaging than growing up as a child soldier. But the point isn’t to compare who had it worse, the point is that Allison’s sister suffered their whole childhood, and she never knew it. Never even thought about it.

Allison wants to fix that. She’s not entirely sure how, but hanging out with Vanya more seems to be a first good step. After Allison chased Vanya back to her apartment the day after Dad’s funeral and apologized for snapping at her, they’ve made - a lot of progress, as far as Allison can determine. Had normal conversations, had a couple drinks together. It’s not much, but it’s only been a few days.

However, it’s also only been a few days for Vanya and Leonard, and _they_ don’t actually know each other. Allison is automatically suspicious of any guy who moves that fast, but she wouldn’t have said anything (much) if Leonard hadn’t _come into Vanya’s apartment._ Oh, apparently he had her key, and apparently he just needed to use the bathroom, and _apparently_ he just had a random bouquet of flowers lying around to leave in Vanya’s bedroom. Uh-huh. Sure, Allison believes that.

At least nothing else was tampered with. Allison knows she annoyed Vanya, grilling her to check if anything was missing or out of place. But Allison has lost a full _half_ of her siblings already, regardless of Five’s return. She’s not taking _any_ chances when it comes to Vanya’s safety. No matter how annoyed Vanya gets when she confirms that none of her food or drink has been moved, none of her possessions are missing or askew, and her meds and backup meds are untampered with. 

Allison just….doesn’t want to lose any more siblings.

She sighs once more, and sets off for home.

Stepping back inside is - gloomy. When she was a child, she always thought the Academy was impressive and grand, a fitting place for the seat of power of the Umbrella Academy. Now, however, she sees the dust and rot that hide in the corners, the looming architecture that makes her feel absurdly small, the numerous and subtle reminders of their father’s insidious control.

The chandelier is still on the ground. They really need to clean that up. Or, well, Luther’s probably the only one who can lift it. But it’s been there for a day and a half already, and Allison really doesn’t want a reminder of the attack by those two psychopaths.

Passing through the foyer, she hears a - sound. It’s coming from the parlor.

She pauses, and eyes the half-open door warily. Those freaks wouldn’t come back again, would they? They got - well, maybe not _thrashed,_ but it definitely wasn’t a win for them. Of course, it wasn’t exactly a win for the Academy, either, so maybe they decided to take their chances again?

Cautiously, Allison inches towards the door, craning her neck to look into the room.

It’s the smell that hits her first. She nearly coughs at it, bringing up her arm to cover her face. The smell of - a _lot_ of alcohol.

Allison pushes open the door, and finds her brother slumped on the floor next to the couch, with roughly half-a dozen empty bottles lying around him and approximately two dozen more lying smashed all around him. The floor is practically a lake of alcohol, and Allison can feel herself getting slightly tipsy off the fumes alone.

“Diego?” Allison says incredulously, then coughs.

Diego twitches slightly, which at least tells her he didn’t drown in all of - this. Or drink himself to death.

What the hell.

“What happened here?” Allison says, getting straight to the point.

However, Diego doesn’t seem to be all that cooperative on that front. He cracks open an eye, briefly, and then groans and resumes impersonating a rag doll.

….Okay.

Allison reviews her options, and then reluctantly goes with the ones that will definitely ruin her shoes and possibly the rest of her outfit. She grimaces as she makes her way over to Diego - she does her best to avoid stepping in the lakes of alcohol, but she’s only somewhat successful.

Hauling Diego into a vaguely vertical position is way more trouble than it’s worth, and Allison has envied Luther’s strength several times over the years but never so much as right now. She staggers under her brother’s weight - Jesus Christ, what does Diego eat, _bricks?_ \- and almost falls over several times, but she does manage to drag-carry him out from the parlor. The whole room should probably be cordoned off and burnt by now, honestly.

Diego moans, and starts trying to feebly protest. Allison gives him a shake, annoyed. “Hey, don’t give me that. You’re lucky I didn’t just toss a lighter in there and let you fend for yourself. What the _hell,_ Diego?”

She gets another slightly cracked eye, which is probably some kind of progress, but that’s all she gets. Diego just moans again instead of answering her.

Patience, Allison tells herself, gritting her teeth. She’s trying to be patient, and understanding, and respectful of others.

She’s also trying to be genuine, though, and right now she’s _genuinely annoyed._ These shoes probably cost more than Diego makes in a month.

Allison manages to drag Diego up the stairs, though not without ‘accidentally’ knocking him into the railing a few times. By the time she reaches their line of rooms, she’s getting fairly winded and is seriously contemplating just leaving him in the hallway.

“Allison?”

She looks up. ‘Luther,” she says, relieved. “Could you help me out?”

Luther eyes the two of them cautiously, but he comes forward. “He’s still drunk?”

“Hungover, I think,” Allison says. “And what do you mean ‘still’?” What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Luther says, taking Diego’s semiconscious form from her with ease. Allison relaxes, and rubs her shoulders. Diego doesn’t gather enough mind to protest - or process, Allison is fairly certain - what’s going on as Luther briskly walks into Diego’s room and deposits him on the bed. He turns back to Allison. “I mean - we had a fight, yesterday. It wasn’t - great. But then a few hours later I found him drinking in the parlor and he wasn’t all that coherent. He threw a few things at me and I decided to leave, and avoid the parlor for the rest of the day. I heard a few crashes here and there, but it quieted down around evening.”

“Guess that’s why I didn’t notice anything,” Allison mutters, slightly unnerved she hadn’t realized Diego’s state when she came back to the Academy to sleep, or when she went out a couple hours earlier today.

Luther shrugs awkwardly. “I, uh. I think it might be because of Mom?”

“....Maybe,” Allison says slowly. “But this seems extreme, even for him.”

“It’s Diego,” Luther points out. “The only one who ever managed to be more dramatic than him was Klaus.”

That garners a snort from her. “I don’t know, Five could be a real diva when he wanted to be.”

“Okay, that’s true,” Luther says. He glances at Diego. “But I think this really is just his way of coping, you know? It’s been a rough few days. For all of us.”

“You can say that again,” Allison sighs. She looks at Diego again, who seems to be unconscious. “We should probably get him out of that, it’s filthy.”

Luther does not seem all that thrilled about her plan. Allison isn’t too fond of it either, but she’s not quite annoyed enough at Diego to make him stay in those disgusting clothes. She twitches just looking at him.

It takes some wriggling, and a lot of looking away, and some inventive cursing of their brother’s choice in ~~bondage suits~~ clothing, but they eventually get Diego stripped down to his boxers and underneath his blanket. Diego mutters at them several times in protest, but it actually seems like he’s so hungover he might still be slightly drunk, and he stays mostly-unconscious throughout the whole thing. Once he’s properly in bed, he curls into a ball and is out like a light.

Allison looks at him and rubs her forehead. “I think I’m going to go fix him something for when he wakes up, could you stay and make sure he doesn’t die of alcohol poisoning?”

“I think he should face the consequences of his actions,” Luther says, eyeing Diego.

“Say that when _you_ have your first hangover,” Allison says, rolling her eyes. “I’ll get something for us too, don’t worry.”

Luther looks unconvinced, and frankly Allison isn’t all that charitably inclined towards Diego right now either (she is _not_ looking forward to helping clean up the parlor, because it’s not like they’re going to make Pogo do it all on his own). But - Allison can understand why Diego reacted so strongly. He always was the closest to Mom out of all of them.

She bids Luther goodbye and heads towards the kitchen. Upon reaching it, she is confronted with the fact that she can count on one hand the number of meals she’s actually made from scratch in her entire life.

Right. Well. She can make….sandwiches. That won’t be so hard. She searches through the cupboards and cabinets and refrigerator and pulls out a few things, and puts together the things that will probably taste alright. If Diego complains she can just smack him on the head to make him puke.

Carrying a plate of four sandwiches, Allison heads back to Diego’s room. She stops by the room Pogo’s been using as an office along the way, but he isn’t there, so his sandwich can just go to Luther. Allison makes a mental note to try and find Pogo later, and thank him for showing her those tapes. Even if the ultimate outcome was tragic, even if it was upsetting, his heart was in the right place. And it was so nice to see Klaus and Ben again.

Allison breathes out a sigh, and grips the plate tighter, pushing away thoughts of her lost brothers. Now isn’t the time to think about them. She should be thinking about more immediate issues. Such as the psychopaths who broke in and murdered their mother, and apparently want to do the same to Five. If Five is in danger - well, Allison can’t exactly see him accepting much help, but whether he likes it or not, this _is_ something that affects all of them. Allison rounds the corner and -

Klaus is standing there.

Allison yelps, and the plate goes crashing to the floor. She ties to scramble backwards and only manages to fall right on her ass, staring up at -

at -

\- oh _god,_ at her brother’s _corpse._

That’s - it - oh god, she can’t stop herself from staring, looking, taking in all the - _horrific_ damage littered across his death-pale skin. He - it -

“Allison?” says the thing that _can’t_ be Klaus. He - _it_ \- grips the edge of its shirt, and some small part of Allison’s mind notes that it looks incredibly makeshift, like it was constructed out of -

_A bedsheet,_ the small part says, while the rest of her is consumed with giving in to hysterical screaming. _What the fuck, I’m looking at a actual **bedsheet ghost.**_

“What,” Allison hears someone saying, and to her horror she realizes that _she’s_ the one saying it, her voice high and breathy. “What the fuck - what are - _what the fuck are you!?_ ”

The thing curls in on itself slightly, twisting Klaus’ face into one of - hurt? Oh god, oh god, what the fuck, what the _fuck,_ oh god, that’s exactly how he looked when they drove him away. Is this some sort of - guilt-induced hallucination? Is she going insane? Is her mind trying to show her what kind of fate Klaus might have met, all alone out there on the streets?

“‘M sorry,” it mumbles, staring at the floor but sending quick glances at her every other second, like it can’t keep its eye - just one, the other covered in a crude eyepatch - off her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

_“What are you?”_ Allison demands, her voice going louder, higher, and she breaks out of her paralysis and starts scrambling backwards on the floor, away from the strewn food and broken shards of plate and the _thing with her brother’s face._

“I - I’m Klaus,” it says, looking upset. “I’m Klaus. I’m sorry I was gone so long. I didn’t want to be. Can - can I come home?”

_“No!”_ Allison shouts reflexively, because _she has seen horror movies._ She’s even acted in a couple. And that she always thought those creepy children that seem ubiquitous to the genre were ridiculous, laughable even, but dear _fucking_ god was she ever wrong. She doesn’t - she doesn’t know what the _fuck_ this is, but she knows _damn_ well not to give this thing what it wants. “No, god no, get away or I swear to god I’ll break your neck, oh god, stop - stop _looking_ like -”

Allison might be hyperventilating. The world is slightly blurry, at least, and she’s breathing awfully fast, but none of that seems important as she keeps staring at the thing that looks like Klaus, that _refuses to stop looking like her brother,_ mutilated and dead and in pain, his expression crumpling like she’s inflicted all those injuries herself, and maybe she did, maybe this is what happened to him because _she wasn’t a good enough sister,_ maybe he’s going to tell her exactly how he died and exactly what was done to him and how it was all her fault, all of it, she’s the one who drove him away the one who thought the worst of him the one who made this happen it’s her fault her fault her fault _her fault -_

“Allison,” her brother says, small and scared and looking on the verge of tears. “Allison, please, I just - please -”

“You’re _dead!_ ” Allison screams at him. “You’re dead, you’re _dead,_ I _know you are,_ go away, get the _fuck_ away from me, oh god, I can’t, I - I heard a rumor you left and _never came back,_ go _away -_ ”

Her vision is incredibly blurry now, and she shakes her head frantically, because _she needs to know if it’s coming closer, where is it,_ and she feels wetness on her cheeks and she hits a wall as she keeps scrambling back further and oh _fuck_ there’s nowhere else to _go_ and -

“Allison!? Allison!”

“Luther!?” Allison says reflexively, and then instantly covers her mouth. She tries to blink away tears and looks around her, but -

the hallway is empty.

Then Luther comes barrelling around the corner and screeches to a stop next to her, scanning her up and down with panic in his eyes. “I heard you screaming, what’s wrong, are you hurt?”

Allison doesn’t hesitate. She throws herself forward, buries her face in his neck, wrapping her arms around him, and she cries, and cries, and cries.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Klaus is outside.

He hardly ever got to go outside when he was alive. Sometimes they could go in the courtyard, but that only sort of counts as outside. It’s not outside the Academy. Klaus remembers every single time he’s ever been outside the Academy, and it’s only ever been for training or missions.

He stumbles over something. He’s not sure what. Whatever it is, it makes him fall down, and he barely catches himself with his hand, tumbling to the floor - except no, this is ground, isn’t that the word?

The ground is hard, but that’s okay. He hardly remembers what soft feels like, only knows it from how his clothes feel when they got old and worn. Klaus vaguely remembers pillows and blankets being amazingly soft, and Ben says there are things _even softer than that_ although Klaus isn’t sure he believes him.

The ground is hard, and cold, and Klaus thinks he probably scraped up his palm catching himself, and he might have hurt his foot more when he moved as quickly as he did getting out of the Academy.

None of that matters, though. Klaus doesn’t bother trying to get up, staying still on the ground of the - he can’t remember the word, the place between two buildings. His face is pressed to the ground, and his eye can only see a sliver of where the ground meets the building.

There’s a small flicker of movement at the edge of his vision. Klaus knows who it is. He closes his eye.

He can still hear, though. So he hears it when Ben says, softly, “Klaus.”

Klaus doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to answer. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He wants to - he wants to be dead. Really dead, not this stupid kind of dead that no one else has to have and is worse than being alive in every way. If he was dead, if he died when he was _supposed_ to, he wouldn’t have been locked away, wouldn’t have killed Pogo, wouldn’t have made his siblings stop loving him.

If they ever did. Klaus doesn’t know if they did, except for Ben, and sometimes he thinks Ben might have _made_ himself love Klaus, because Klaus is the only person he can talk to. He hasn’t ever asked his brother if he loved Klaus when they were both alive. He’s too scared.

Maybe it’s better if his siblings never loved him. That means there was never anything to lose, right? So that means being sad right now is just dumb. Except - except Ben said they missed him. Ben _said._ Ben wouldn’t lie about that, he promised he wouldn’t lie, and Ben doesn’t break his promises when they’re _really_ important. So -

So that means they reacted like that because _he_ did something wrong. He must have done something wrong, made them angry and upset and stop being happy he’s back, and he wants to tell them he’s so sorry, more sorry than anything he’s ever been sorry about, and he’ll try and fix it right away, but he doesn’t know what he did wrong. How can he fix it when he doesn’t know what he did wrong? They’ll be so angry that he doesn’t know what he did, it’s obviously really important and obvious to them, _he should know what he did wrong._

But as much as he tries, he can’t figure it out.

“Klaus,” Ben says again.

Klaus opens his eye and looks at Ben. His brother is sitting next to his head, and he looks really upset. There are tears on his face. They’re ghost tears, not real tears, but Klaus knows he means them. Ben hardly ever cries - in front of Klaus, anyways. But Klaus remembers a few things from right after Ben died, even if the memories are all strangely blurry and broken-up, and Ben cried a lot then.

That’s understandable. Klaus wanted to cry a lot after _he_ died, too. Dying is hard.

He doesn’t know why Ben is crying now, though. It’s important, because everything about Ben is important, but Klaus is suddenly overcome with the need to _know_ if Ben knows -

“What did I do wrong?” Klaus asks him.

Ben flinches back like Diego hit him in the chest with a knife. “Klaus,” he says. “You didn’t do _anything_ wrong.”

“No,” Klaus says, tilting his head a little to look at Ben more clearly. He feels - calm, all of a sudden. Weirdly calm. He doesn’t know why. “No, I did something wrong. What did I do, Ben? I made them hate me, how did I do that?”

“No, Klaus,” Ben says, repositioning himself so he’s on his knees, and he lowers his face so he’s closer to Klaus’ own. He looks desperate, still crying. “No, I promise you didn’t do anything.”

“You’re lying,” Klaus says.

“No -”

“You’re lying,” Klaus says again. “You promised they missed me and you’re promising I didn’t do anything to make them hate me but they do, they hate me, they made me go away and never come back, they _never_ want to see me again.” There’s an empty feeling in his chest, an awful empty feeling, like how he felt all the time before Ben died. “You promised both of those but they can’t both be true, so which one is true? Ben, which one is true?”

“Both of them,” Ben says. “Klaus, I think - I think I figured it out, I think I know why they’re acting like this, it’s - it’s because of your injuries, Klaus. Do you remember how I reacted to your eye? And I haven’t thought about your other injuries in years, but when I first saw them I was horrified, they were terrifying. You look like the brother they lost, but -”

“I’m dead,” Klaus says. It feels almost like there’s something in his throat, except for how there hasn’t been anything in his throat for seventeen years. “I’m dead. That’s what they’re upset about? Me being - like I am?”

“I - I think so,” Ben says, looking miserable.

“....Oh,” says Klaus.

That’s….

That’s still _his fault,_ though, isn’t it? He’s the one who smashed his head in. He’s the one who tore off his arm, and broke his foot, and stabbed his eye and sewed his mouth and cut his skin and carved his palm and and and…..

And they’re scared by it. They hate it, they think he’s so awful they never want to see him again. It’s -

It’s just like when they were kids, he realizes, and the understanding is like the world shifting underneath him. When they were kids, his siblings were always creeped out by the corpses he played with. They never liked being near one, always ran away or made him stop animating it. They said it was creepy, it was gross, it was awful and disgusting and wrong.

And now….now _he’s_ a corpse, himself.

How could they ever love him now?

“Oh,” Klaus says.

“I….” Ben says, trailing off. He reaches a hand out, like he wants to touch Klaus, but does he really? He never liked the corpses when he was alive, he never wanted to touch one. Why would he now? “I’m so sorry, Klaus.”

Klaus feels so, so stupid.

He should have known. _He should have known._ He knew they hated his power, he knew they hated the corpses, he knew they thought it was disgusting. How could he ever think they could overlook him using it on himself? That the part of him they always hated most is now _all_ of him? Of course they don’t love him anymore.

He’s such an idiot.

“Klaus?” Ben says, hesitantly. That’s not really like him.

Klaus blinks up at him. At his brother. The one who’s always been there for him since he died, the one who sung to him and played with him and soothed him and talked with him and entertained him and made him feel safe and warm and - and _loved._ Ben makes him feel loved.

“Do you love me?” Klaus asks.

Ben jerks back, shock on his face, and Klaus feels his insides _freeze,_ because oh. Oh, of course. Of course Ben doesn’t love him. He apologized for upsetting Klaus when they were both alive, for not speaking up during the meeting, but that doesn’t mean he _loves_ Klaus. It just means - he probably feels guilty for _not_ loving Klaus, because Ben is a good person like that. You can’t control what you feel, though, so it’s not his fault. He doesn’t owe Klaus anything, _Klaus_ is the one with the awful disgusting power that makes him a walking corpse. Klaus is the one who hurt himself, he’s the one who makes people upset, he’s the one who goes around being horrible and gross and _wrong._

Dad was probably right to lock him away.

“Of course I do!”

Klaus blinks. “What?”

“Of course I do,” Ben says, and he looks really upset. “Of course I love you, Klaus, did you really not - fuck, Jesus fucking Christ - yes, yes, I love you, Klaus. I’ve always loved you, alive or dead, you’re my _brother._ ”

Klaus stares at him.

“....Oh,” he says.

Ben is blinking a lot now, looking stricken. “God, Klaus,” he says. “Did you really never know that?”

Feeling uncomfortable, Klaus shrugs. “I didn’t want to ask,” Klaus mutters, “Just - just in case.”

There’s a pause.

“Well,” Ben says, working his jaw. “I do. I love you. So - there.”

For the first time since Diego fell off his stool, Klaus feels the weight in his chest - lighten, just a bit.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

**********

The woman screams, and throws a rock at him. It hits him in the shoulder, and Klaus overbalances, falling to the ground.

“Zombie!” she shrieks, voice echoing through the alley. “Oh my god, it’s a fucking zombie, the fucking apocalypse is here, _run!_ ”

Something heavy hits Klaus’ head, probably another rock, and he brings up his arm to shield himself. He can’t help but let out a whimper as he curls into a ball.

Ben is shouting at the woman, even though she can’t hear him. “Stop it! Stop it, you fucking moron, stop that now or I swear I’ll kill you, don’t you _fucking_ hurt him!”

_“Everybody run!”_ the woman screams again, and there’s another impact - Klaus’ arm catches it, but it’s jarring, and Klaus is suddenly terrified that she’ll get a lucky hit in and it’ll break. He can correct for that, the bone being broken, he can hold it in place and move it _almost_ as good, but for the first time he realizes what Pogo meant when he said the risk was too great. If Klaus’ arm gets too broken, it’ll hardly be an arm anymore, he won’t be able to correct for it, and he won’t have either of his arms and his foot will be hurt and, and - it’ll just get worse, won’t it?

Especially since people will try to actively hurt him. This woman is the first one that’s caught him, but he’s been wandering through alleys for half a day now and he’s seen so many people, more people than he even knew existed just walking down the streets, and it’s _amazing._ But whenever anyone manages to see him, they look startled and scared and horrified, just like his siblings. Ben told him to _run_ each time, and he did, even if it was hard on his foot, but he couldn’t get away from this woman quick enough.

“Go for the head!” the woman shouts, and Klaus is seized with terror. Is she going to smash his head open? He knows his brain isn’t important, but his _eye_ is in his head. He only has one eye _left._

He quickly moves his arm to fully cover his eye, and just in time. There’s another impact on his head, and he can feel his skull breaking. It’s already dented, but this feels like another one just got added. Then there’s another impact against his shin, and -

\- he can feel the bone _crack._

Ben _roars_ at the woman, but he can’t do anything. Klaus wonders if he should try fighting back, but he can’t remember how. Training was so long ago.

“Everyone for themselves!” the woman shrieks, and then -

Then she runs away.

It takes a moment for Klaus to lift his arm up and peek, but - yes, she’s really gone.

“Klaus,” Ben says, crouching down, looking terrified. “Klaus, are you okay?”

Klaus blinks at him, and he realizes he’s shaking.

“I think my leg is broken,” he says in a small voice.

Ben’s face _freezes,_ and he looks at Klaus’ legs with horror. _“Fuck,”_ he says. “Oh god. Can - can you still walk? We need to go, her screaming is probably going to attract at least some attention.”

“I don’t - I don’t know,” Klaus says, feeling like crying. He slowly uncurls, and brushing his hand by the side of his head tells him yeah, his head has a _big_ dent in it now. He looks down at his leg -

“Hello?” a voice calls.

Ben snaps his head towards it, wide-eyed. “Shit, Klaus, we have to go -”

Klaus bites his lip and looks at his leg. Only sort of crooked. He moves the bones back together, nice and neat, and he thinks it’s okay, but -

An old man rounds the corner, and stops when he sees Klaus.

Klaus flinches and brings up his arm to cover his face - he lost his eyepatch a couple hours ago, and everyone always looks at his socket first. He scrambles back, ignoring Ben’s “Shit shit shit -”

“Oh my god,” the man says. He hurries forward. “Oh god, kid, are you alright? That woman, the one who was screaming about zombies, did she hurt you?”

Klaus tries to get to his feet, but he’s so focused on his leg he forgets to keep his foot together right and he falls to the ground. He lets out a whine, and curls up. Maybe the man will be so shocked and disgusted he’ll run away immediately instead of trying to hurt Klaus.

“I’m here, Klaus, I’m here,” Ben says, and he sounds like he’s crying again, but - but he _is_ here, and that’s enough to make Klaus feel a spark of warmth in the sea of terror stuffed inside of him.

“Hey, hey, kid, it’s alri-” the man says, and then his voice is closer, and then it breaks off entirely.

Klaus curls up tighter, and hopes with all his might that the man just runs away. Hope keeps slipping out of his fingers, but he tries holding onto a little of it, any of it.

_“....B’Ezrat HaShem”_ the man says, stunned.

Then there’s - a small sound, and oh, he’s kneeling, the old man is kneeling down on the ground, a few feet away from Klaus.

“Kid?” the man says. “Kid, are - are you alright?”

Klaus curls in tighter on himself. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out, still keeping his face covered. “I’m sorry, please just go away, I promise I won’t bother you, I won’t hurt anyone, please just go away, don’t hurt me please I’m sorry -”

“Hey, hey,” the man says. “No, I’m not going to hurt you, I promise, okay? Not going to hurt you.”

“....I think you might be able to get away fast enough if he tries, Klaus,” Ben says unexpectedly. There’s still an edge of fear in his voice, but he sounds more certain. “He’s got to be in his eighties or so. And I don’t think you’ll be able to just convince him to leave you like this, he looks like a do-gooder. Your best bet is probably - interact with him a little, and get ready to run, and do that when he’s distracted by - you.”

Klaus hesitates for several long seconds, but - Ben knows these things better than him. He isn’t always right, but he’s definitely right a lot more often than Klaus.

So, carefully, slowly -

Klaus moves his arm, and looks at the man.

He’s really old, that’s for sure. Klaus doesn’t really know how to tell people’s ages, so he guesses Ben’s guess is as good as anything. He’s wearing nice clothes, but most clothes are nicer than Klaus’ so he doesn’t know how to judge that. He’s kneeling on the ground, almost close enough to reach out and touch Klaus, although of course that’s not going to happen.

The man’s eyes go really big when he sees Klaus’ face, and Klaus flinches back.

“Hey,” the man says, holding up his hands. Klaus flinches back harder, trying to shove himself back more, and the man quickly - lowers his hands? “Hey, it’s alright, I’m not going to hurt you, kid.”

Klaus stares at him.

“I’m - I’m really not,” the man says. Ben glares at him.

“Why?” Klaus says, surprising himself.

“Why?” the man says, looking surprised. “Well - you’re a kid. A….very _strange_ kid…. but I’ve never hurt a kid in my life and I don’t plan to. So.”

The man shrugs slightly. Klaus, and now Ben, stare at him.

“I’m dead, though,” Klaus says. “I’m dead. Aren’t you - scared?”

“I’ve seen worse,” the man says.

Klaus and Ben blink in unison. Klaus swaps glances with his brother, who probably looks as baffled as Klaus. They look back at the man.

“Don’t get me wrong,” the man says, leaning back, and looking Klaus over. “You’re definitely the - _liveliest_ corpse I’ve seen. But I’ve definitely seen worse corpses, kid. You’re not too bad.”

Klaus has no idea how to feel about that.

“I….didn’t expect that,” Ben says, bemused.

“Uh,” the man says. Klaus eyes him. “By the way, do you have a name?”

“....Klaus,” he says, after glancing at Ben and receiving a small nod.

“Klaus,” the man repeats. “Alright. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Klaus.”

“Holy shit,” Ben says, peering at the man. “I think he might actually mean that.”

Klaus has no idea how to feel about _that,_ either. He tries to distract himself by biting his lip and looking at the man. “And what’s your name?” he asks, almost challengingly.

The man - _smiles_ at him, and Klaus freezes, because he can’t remember the last time _anyone_ besides Ben smiled at him, and oh, it’s just as warm coming from other people.

“Right, sorry about that,” the man says. “I’m Dave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: suspected manipulation/predatory behavior, violence towards a child.
> 
> _Surprize, bitches!_
> 
> And now, finally, Dave is here! I've been waiting to reveal this part for quite some time.
> 
> And just to make things _exquisitely_ clear, there will of course be no hint of romance between Klaus and Dave in this fic. There's an almost seventy-year age difference, platonic all the way. Dave is just going to do his best to care for this tiny zombie child.
> 
> It probably goes without saying, but Klaus will be getting that long-overdue hug in the next chapter. So there's that to look forward to.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: discussion of child soldiers, mentioned death of children, period-typical homophobia, remembered accusations of pedophilia. Basically, Dave has Seen Some Shit.

Dave Katz has absolutely no idea what he is doing.

He takes a walk every day to the park near his apartment, just to keep in shape, because even fifty years later he can still hear his sergeant castigating him about slacking off. Today, he was just minding his own business, wondering what he might make for dinner once he goes home, when he heard the screaming.

The woman was clearly high even before he detangled her words enough to realize she was screaming about zombies. By the looks of her clothing, she might have been homeless as well. There were a few other people out on the street, shooting her uncomfortable and slightly frightened looks as she sprinted down the sidewalk.

Dave felt more sympathetic - he was homeless too, for a while, after coming back from ‘Nam. He managed to get back on his feet in a few years, managed to avoid falling too far into drugs or alcohol, but he definitely remembers what it was like to have no stable place. He wondered if maybe she ran into some other vagrant, one who bore years of ill-use and might get mistaken for a ‘zombie’ by someone not in their right mind. He decided to check out the alley she came from, because hey, it’s not like he’d lose anything by doing so.

Finding an _actual zombie_ was not something he was prepared for.

The boy - Klaus - looks to be maybe fourteen or so, unless he’s tall for his age. He’s corpse-pale (well, obviously), and bears a truly unsettling array of injuries that nonetheless don’t seem to bother him in the least. He’s still on the ground, which means Dave is too (and his knees certainly aren’t thanking him for that), but at least he’s stopped cowering. There’s still fear on his face, and his head looks like a partially deflated soccer ball. With mange.

But - he’s talking to Dave. That’s a step in the right direction, at least.

Dave should probably figure out where that direction is _going,_ but right now he’s kind of preoccupied with making sure he doesn’t scare the terrified zombie child in front of him. He can work out long-term plans _later._

“Dave,” Klaus repeats carefully. “....Hi, Dave.”

“Hi to you too,” Dave says genially. He thinks he should probably stop kneeling, and shifts.

Klaus flinches back, and Dave stops moving, hardly daring to breathe.

“Sorry,” he says at once. “Do you mind if I sit differently? My knees aren’t liking this position all that much.”

Klaus’ eye darts to the side again. He’s done that a couple times already, and Dave just now realizes he’s staring at the same spot each time. “...Oh,” Klaus says. “Okay.”

“Thanks,” Dave says, and lets out a long sigh when he gets his feet out from under him. He shuffles to the side and leans against the wall of the building. “Oh, that feels a hell of a lot better.” He looks at Klaus. “I’d say you’ll understand one day, but, uh. I’m guessing you won’t?”

Klaus looks faintly incredulous. Frankly, Dave also feels incredulous. He’s talking to a literal Hollywood _zombie_ right now.

Not that Klaus is acting at all like a normal zombie. Or, well, Dave supposes that movie zombies are the ones that don’t act like normal zombies, since Klaus is definitely real and is just acting like a regular traumatized kid who just so happens to also be undead.

“I have to be careful,” Klaus says. He reaches up to the larger dent in his head. It makes Dave’s gut churn to see that kind of injury on a _child,_ but. Well. Dave wasn’t lying when he said he’s seen worse. “If I get hurt, I can’t heal.”

“Yeah,” Dave says. “I kinda noticed that. Are you….okay? Are you in pain?”

Klaus just shrugs. “Not really.”

Okay then. Dave is still - _not_ okay with seeing Klaus be so fucked up, but if Klaus himself is apathetic about it Dave probably shouldn’t bring it up as a main topic. Best to just let it lie.

“I can’t run very fast, though,” Klaus adds, looking down at his legs. Then he glances over at the spot again and blinks. “Oh. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why - oh,” Dave says. “I’m really not going to hurt you, Klaus.”

And he’s not. Dave isn’t proud of everything he’s done in his entire life, because eighty years is a long time. He has regrets. And he _has_ hurt people, killed people. But he has never once hurt a child, and he plans to keep it that way. There’s nothing Klaus can do to make that change - well, if Klaus attacks someone in front of Dave, he’d probably try to restrain the kid, but that seems _pretty_ unlikely to happen.

If Klaus attacks or hurts Dave - and Dave isn’t ruling that one out, if Klaus panics and lashes out unexpectedly, because Dave’s reflexes aren’t what they used to be - he’s pretty sure he can take it. Not all that _well,_ because he’s definitely not thirty any more, but he can. And he still isn’t going to hurt a scared little kid who looks like he expects Dave to shoot him in the face if he makes a wrong move.

_That_ expression is pretty familiar, honestly. And Dave had his fill of it fifty years ago.

Klaus doesn’t answer, which is fair. He has no reason to believe Dave, not when all Dave has offered him is words.

But - thinking about that causes Dave to frown.

“Um, Klaus,” Dave says. “Do you have a place to keep yourself safe? - you don’t have to tell me where if you do, but do you?”

Klaus goes very still. He looks at the spot again, with a hint of pleading in his eyes.

The seconds stretch out.

Then Klaus bites his lip and looks back at Dave. “Dad had a - place. But Dad is dead now. Pogo too. And I can’t - I can’t go back.”

“Oh,” Dave breathes. “I’m so sorry.”

Klaus looks miserable, like he’s about to cry. He doesn’t though, he curls his knees up to his chest and blinks at Dave, and it’s remarkable how much a mutilated dead body can look like a waterlogged kitten. Even his empty eye socket manages to look sad.

“Would you like to come home with me?” Dave hears someone say.

Then he takes in Klaus’ look of shock, and realizes - oh. That was him saying that.

_What the fuck,_ Dave thinks at his mouth.

“What?” Klaus says, still looking stunned.

“Uh,” Dave says.

He’s halfway to forming an apology for the offer, possibly claiming it as a joke, before he - stops.

And thinks.

Klaus is a child. An undead child. An _obviously_ undead child. He’s not - society isn’t really set up to handle that. Dave has no idea what would happen to Klaus if he went to a police station and asked to be taken care of. Dave doubts they’d just handle him like any other child. There would be - attention, and scrutiny, and likely a lot of people wanting to know what the fuck is going on with reality that an actual zombie is walking around.

Klaus being treated as an actual child, throughout all of that, is not a very likely outcome. Klaus being locked up, studied, prodded like a lab rat and used with no regard for his wellbeing, is - more likely. Much more so.

So that leaves unofficial channels, but how can Klaus make use of those? Anyone he tries to approach will have a high chance of reacting negatively, possibly with violence. It sounds like his Dad and - someone - worked together to keep Klaus safe before this, but they’re both dead now, and apparently they either didn’t leave behind any contingencies or they proved inadequate. And now Klaus is wandering the streets, alone and scared, trying to avoid people and expecting to get hurt when he can’t - _actually_ getting hurt when he can’t - and Dave is pretty sure he doesn’t have any larger plan besides that.

The most he can hope for, Dave realizes, is coming across someone kind enough to take him in, just because. Someone who will overlook the fact that he’s the walking dead, someone who cares that he’s a kid beneath that, someone who won’t hurt him or be afraid of him or react wrongly.

Someone like Dave.

Sure, there might be other people who would react like Dave is now, but - there’s a lot more people who will react like that woman. Chances are, Klaus will encounter quite a few of the latter before he finds a single one of the former, and who knows what state he’ll be in by then?

So….put like that, Dave’s choice is pretty clear-cut.

“Yeah,” Dave says. “Um. I realize that sounds kind of sketchy. Very sketchy, actually. But if you don’t have anywhere _else_ to go, I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I just left you out here all alone. And I am in fact eighty years old, so you could probably overpower me if I did anything sketchy. So - what do you say? I live a few blocks from here, we can probably get you there without anyone getting a good look at you.”

Klaus blinks at him. “Sketchy?”

“Anything bad,” Dave rewords.

“Oh,” Klaus says. He looks over at the spot again.

Dave watches as Klaus seems to think it over, which is a good sign. Dave finds, after a moment of surprise, that he hopes Klaus takes the offer. He doesn’t want Klaus to be wandering through the streets, afraid of everyone and everything, completely alone and at the mercy of anyone who comes across him. That just sounds horrible all around.

He really _couldn’t_ live with himself if that happened, Dave realizes.

So he sits and waits, and then Klaus looks up at him and says, “Okay,” and suddenly Dave feels fifty years younger.

“Oh, thank god,” Dave slumps. “Well. Okay. Let’s get going, then.”

Dave laboriously gets to his feet, because even if he feels younger he’s not actually. His bones pop in protest at the position they’ve been in for so long, and he winces. He’ll be paying for that one tomorrow. When he’s steady enough he looks over at Klaus, who is looking at him with his head in a tilt.

“Bones are hard,” Klaus says solemnly, and it takes Dave a moment to realize he’s sympathizing with Dave’s obvious pain.

“Got that one right,” Dave says, shaking his head. Then he looks at Klaus with a frown. “You said you had trouble running? Are your legs okay?”

“My foot is broken,” Klaus says, pointing. “And that woman broke my leg.”

“What!?” Dave says. “Oh, Jesus, are you okay? How are you even standing? I know you’re -” he waves an arm at Klaus’ whole - whatever, “- but a broken leg and foot just doesn’t _work_ right.”

“I’m holding it together,” Klaus says. It takes Dave a moment to realize he means that literally. “I can - do that.”

“....Alright,” Dave says, because, well, Klaus _is_ standing with no indication of pain or effort. “Well, then. Let’s go this way, if I remember right this alley should connect to one that goes right by my apartment…..”

They do, in fact, manage to make it to Dave’s apartment without anyone noticing Klaus’ undead state. Dave sends a prayer of thanks, the likes of which he hasn’t said _that_ fervently since Vietnam. Smuggling Klaus inside is nerve-wracking, and Dave keeps himself between Klaus and his neighbors’ doors, but none of them open and no one sees Klaus and then finally Dave is closing the door and his shoulders relax and he can breathe again.

“Okay!” he says. “That was an adventure. Almost like ‘Nam.”

“Nam?” Klaus parrots, looking around Dave’s living room. Dave likes to think of it as homey, although his nieces and nephews all tease him and say it’s stuffy and old. What can he say, though, Dave likes the classics. There’s a bunch of old furniture around, and some posters of movies and albums that came out when Dave was young, and pictures of his parents and sisters and their families dotted around. He hasn’t even cut Sheila’s husband out of their picture, which Dave thinks is very big of him since he and his nephew-in-law hate each other’s guts.

“Vietnam,” Dave says idly, tapping one of the pictures. It’s the one of his entire platoon, frozen grins staring into the camera. Dave likes to remember them like that, instead of how they died.

“What’s that?” Klaus says, looking at the photo.

Dave stops. Looks at Klaus.

“.....It was a war,” he says slowly. “About fifty years ago. I fought in it.”

“Oh,” Klaus says.

“That’s me, right there,” Dave says, pointing at the picture. “And that’s the rest of my platoon. We all fought together.” And died together, except for him, but he’s not telling a kid that. Even if said kid is possibly even more familiar with death than Dave himself.

“I used to fight too,” Klaus nods. “With my - my siblings.”

Dave lets out a small snort. “War’s a little different from that. People shoot at you, for one thing.”

“No, we got shot at too,” Klaus says.

“....What,” Dave says.

Klaus frowns, and looks to the side. He blinks.

“Klaus,” Dave says, trying to keep himself calm. “What do you mean by that? Someone _shot_ at you?”

He didn’t - oh, Jesus, he didn’t connect the dots. Klaus is a child, and he’s undead, and Dave was so busy dealing with that he didn’t realize Klaus must have _died_ to become like he is now. What the - oh god. Dave gives Klaus a surreptitious once-over and he can’t _see_ a bullet wound but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. And how and _why_ the fuck was a child anywhere near guns in the first place?

“Why?” Klaus says. “He’ll figure it out.”

“What?” Dave says.

Klaus bites his lip and looks uncertain. He glances at Dave from the corner of his eye, then looks back to the side again. “I’ll ask him not to. He’s _nice,_ Ben.”

“....Who’s Ben?” Dave says slowly. “Klaus, could you please tell me who you’re talking to? And what you meant about being shot at?”

“You _said_ we need help,” Klaus argues with thin air.

Dave has no idea what is going on. He considers his options, and carefully sinks into the couch, eyeing Klaus.

“I understand you just met me, Klaus,” Dave says. “But I really would like to know what you’re talking about, if that’s okay with you. I’m pretty concerned.”

Klaus looks at the empty space with a glance that might be slightly pointed. After a few seconds, he gives a huff of - victory?

“Can I sit down?” he asks Dave. “I don’t want to stand too much, it might hurt my foot more.”

“Of course,” Dave says immediately. He pats the couch next to him before wondering if he should really be inviting a young teenager he just met today to sit next to him on the couch. One who doesn’t even know what _sketchy_ means, even.

Klaus comes over and sits anyways, though he does it gingerly and sits further away than Dave indicated, so maybe he does have a sense of stranger danger after all.

Klaus is quiet for a few seconds, before he says, “I’m the Seancé. From the Umbrella Academy.” He lifts up his arm, and for the first time Dave notices the tattoo on his wrist.

“......Oh,” Dave says.

Because….that really does explain everything, doesn’t it.

Dave remembers when the miracle children were born. He was fifty-one years old, settled in his life and finally beginning to accept that the terrors of the war and despair of the streets were truly over and done with. The miracle children were worldwide news, all anyone could talk about. There were many, many people who thought it was all some big hoax, probably more than the people who believed it to be honest, but Dave -

Dave had seen a few things, in the war. Not enough to take the children at face value, but….enough to be open to the possibility they were real.

It came to a definitive head with the unveiling of the Umbrella Academy, when Dave was sixty-three. Six children, all of them adopted by the city’s local billionaire, all of them born at the same time under mysterious circumstances and all of them possessing real, actual _superpowers._

Dave didn’t like it one bit.

Because - yes, the kids had superpowers. Yes, it was like a comic book come to life. Yes, they were quite effective at crime-fighting, because criminals had no idea how to counter things that broke the laws of physics.

They were also child soldiers. Plain and simple.

Even to this day, Dave remembers the group of child soldiers his squad encountered in ‘Nam. Dave froze, and several other guys froze, but the children didn’t freeze. They just lifted their weapons, eyes flat and cold, and unloaded at Dave and his squad.

Two of Dave’s squadmates died, and the two that managed to bring themselves to shoot back and kill the kids gained permanent nightmares. Hell, they all did, and five decades later the children’s eyes still pop up in his dreams sometimes.

Looking at the Umbrella Academy, Dave often wondered if they wore those masks to prevent anyone from seeing that look in their eyes.

It caused a stir when the Boy - the teleporter - disappeared. Ultimately, the reassurances of the Seancé quelled most of the rumors, because when someone can contact the dead it’s kind of difficult to claim their own brother is dead. Common consensus was that he ran away, and there was a tell-all book a few years back that confirmed it.

The Seancé’s disappearance happened almost a year later, although there were some conspiracies that it happened earlier and was covered up. Come to think about it, Dave remembers hearing that might have been confirmed in the book. That invited a lot more scrutiny towards the Umbrella Academy, and when another one of the kids actually _died,_ the whole concept of Academy was pretty much dead in the water.

Dave was relieved about that. Even if the death of one of the children was tragic, it made people stop - glamorizing, idolizing, _worshipping_ the group of child soldiers in their midst. The remainder of the kids went their separate ways, and the most Dave has heard of them since is Allison Hargreeves’ movies, that book, and the fact that Reginald Hargreeves died a week ago.

And now, with the Seancé himself, sitting on his couch and looking at him.

“So,” Dave says, swallowing. “I guess you died fighting criminals, and - your powers let you keep living?”

Klaus tilts his head. “Yeah. Except actually I killed myself.” He frowns down at his hand. “I shouldn’t have done that. It didn’t work.”

Dave feels like he’s been punched in the chest.

“Oh,” he says faintly. “Oh, god. Why did - I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

For the first time since agreeing to come home with Dave, Klaus looks uncertain. “....Thanks,” he says eventually. He looks to the side again. “Ben is here, though. I was really lonely before Ben died and I still don’t like that that happened but I’m glad I can have him. He loves me.”

Klaus says that last part with solemn reverence, like it’s the most treasured thing he has.

“Ben?” Dave says.

“My brother.”

Oh, of course. The one who died. Dave shakes his head, because frankly it’s spinning with all the information that’s been dropped on him in the past - god, has it only been an hour or so since he found Klaus?

“And Ben is here? In this room?” Dave checks.

“Uh-huh,” Klaus says, pointing to the empty spot he keeps glancing at. Well, empty to Dave, anyways.

“Oh,” Dave looks at it. “Well, hi, Ben. Ah, nice to meet you, as much as I can meet you, anyways.” He pauses. “I’m glad Klaus has someone looking out for him.”

“Ben is the best,” Klaus says. “He always stayed with me and played games and told me what everyone else was doing and he sings to me too. He loves me.”

“Sure sounds like it,” Dave smiles at Klaus, glad that he kid had _something_ good in his life (death? existence?). Then he catches on part of what Klaus just said and snorts a little. “He spies on people, huh?”

Klaus nods. “He’s the best spy ever. He always came back and told me what was going on outside my room.”

“Your - room?” Dave says. He frowns. “Wait, did - I can see why you wouldn’t be allowed outside, but you could leave your room, right?”

“No,” Klaus says, and the bottom drops out of Dave’s stomach as he continues. “Dad put me in a room in the basement so I wouldn’t get damaged. He said I could come out one day but -” Klaus falters. “But I think he was - lying. Pogo said the same thing and he admitted he was lying. So - so I got out myself. But my siblings, the alive ones, they - they don’t love me anymore. They _don’t,_ Ben. They don’t like my necromancy, they hate when I make corpses move around and _I’m_ a corpse now so they don’t like me. They hurt me and yelled at me and said to never ever come back and Allison rumored me so I _can’t_ and _they don’t love me, Ben!_ ”

Dave sits there, stunned.

Klaus isn’t looking at him anymore, instead looking at where Ben is, and his face is creased with pain and his hand is balled in a fist and - and he’s _shaking_ and Dave reaches out unconsciously and puts his hand on Klaus’ shoulder.

Klaus

goes

utterly

still.

Still as a statue. Still as a photograph. Stiller than any living human being _can_ go, unblinking and unbreathing and devoid of any minute twitches that might come from a living person.

The shirt Klaus is wearing looks crudely made, and leaves some of his shoulder bare. His skin, where Dave’s hand is touching it, is room temperature. Dave has touched dead bodies before, but they were all freshly dead, still warm. Never this cool. It’s unnerving, feeling the texture of human skin at this temperature, his hindbrain insisting that the sensation is _wrong._

Worse, Klaus doesn’t look like he enjoys the contact. Dave removes his hand, and a larger part of him than he’d like to admit feels relieved.

Slowly, Klaus looks down at his shoulder. He lifts his hand up, as if to touch it, but halts halfway there.

“Sorry,” Dave says.

Klaus doesn’t seem to hear him, still staring at his shoulder.

“Warm,” he says, so softly Dave almost misses it.

“Eh?” Dave says, then blinks. Oh. If Klaus is cool to him, then he must be warm to Klaus. Obviously. “Oh, right. Ah, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have touched you without your permission. I won’t do it again. I just - thought you needed some comfort.”

“It was - nice,” mumbles Klaus, darting a glance up at Dave before looking away just as quickly. “You don’t - have to, though. No one wants to touch a dead thing.”

Dave pauses.

“Klaus,” he says slowly. “Do you…. _want_ to be tou-comforted? Er, wait, no, I mean - hug. Do you want a hug?”

A small whine slips out of Klaus, and he stares at Dave with a _huge_ eye. He looks like Dave is offering him the moon, the sun, and all the rest of the universe as well.

Well. Alright then. Dave opens his arms, and Klaus can only hold himself back for a single heartbeat before he scrambles over and falls against Dave’s chest.

Dave wraps his arms around Klaus, and _firmly_ pushes back his hindbrain’s disgust at holding what is very definitely a mutilated dead body, because he’s also holding a scared little boy, and _that_ takes precedence over anything, any day.

Said boy is also shaking, which does help combating the impression of deadness. Dave wonders when the hell he last had a hug, and _that_ quickly starts being a depressing train of thought, so he drops it and just hugs Klaus tighter.

Leaning back against the couch, Dave decides that he’s going to keep up the hug for as long as Klaus declines to ask it to stop.

Somehow, Dave suspects he’s going to miss dinner.

**********

“And then Reynolds - you know, the one who _suggested coming out in the first place_ \- said to me, ‘I think I want to sit this one out.’ And I just _looked_ at him, and said, ‘If you don’t get in the car I swear to god I am going to take out the pins to all of my grenades and throw them into the jungle and Charlie is going to find us and kill us all, but at least your corpse will _stay put._ ’”

Klaus lets out a quiet snort against his chest.

“Look, I was under a lot of pressure,” Dave defends. “So Reynolds gives in and comes along, and I think everything is fine, but _then_ two weeks later I suddenly have a reputation as the guy who’s willing to throw grenades at every problem. The guys will exaggeratedly let me go ahead of them in the mess line because they don’t want me to ‘clear the way’, whenever we go out on patrol they’ll offer me an entire bandolier, and even Sarge pulled me aside and said, with a straight face, that he heard about my ‘hobby’ and I’d have to tone it down because we were running low on the things!”

Klaus actually _snickers._

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Dave rolls his eyes. He pats Klaus’ head. It’s lumpy and misshapen and the patches where his hair was torn out aren’t exactly _pleasant_ to encounter, but normal kids have their heads patted, and Dave is determined to treat Klaus like a normal kid unless he literally can’t.

So far, it seems to be doing Klaus a world of good. Klaus is still stuck to him like a limpet, and Dave did in fact miss dinner. He considers the past - he checks the clock - four hours to be well-spent, though. Telling Klaus stories about his occasionally tumultuous youth has helped pass the time, and Klaus started relaxing and responding about an hour in. Once or twice, he’s even shared a small anecdote of his own.

Such as now, when he pipes up with, “Ben said that about me once. He said he was happy he didn’t have bones anymore because obviously I’d steal them and make them into playing pieces. He teased me for _ages._ ” Klaus turns his head a little to look meaningfully over at one of the chairs.

Dave has learned about Klaus’ playing pieces, his only entertainment when he was locked away. He feels another surge of anger towards Reginald Hargreeves, and once again debates the wisdom of having Klaus call up Dave’s old squadmates and getting them to go beat up the old bastard in the afterlife.

But he smiles down at Klaus, because stripped of context that _is_ actually pretty adorable, the exact kind of shenanigans you’d expect from brothers. “So you know what I’m talking about,” he says in relief.

“Uh huh,” Klaus says, and then, “Can I see your bandolier later?”

Dave’s jaw drops open. “You traitor!”

That earns an actual _giggle,_ and Dave is torn between feeling deeply betrayed and disproportionately triumphant. It’s a weird mixture.

Dave yawns all of a sudden, his jaw nearly cracking at the force of it. He blinks. “Well, damn, I’m feeling pretty beat…..uh, do you sleep, Klaus?”

“....No,” Klaus says.

“Mm,” Dave says, frowning. “Well, that presents something of a logistical problem. I’m pretty tired, and I should probably turn in soon. Should I - find you a puzzle book or something?”

“I can’t go to bed with you?” Klaus asks.

“Uh.”

Dave stops himself from saying the first thing that comes to mind, which is _oh god no, absolutely not dear god **no**_ because he has by now learned enough about Klaus to know that the kid would take it as a reflection on _him._ Living his first thirteen years as a child soldier and then seventeen more in solitary confinement has ensured that Klaus is aware of absolutely none of the subtext he just implied. And he especially isn’t aware of how it relates to Dave, who grew up in a world where it was taken for granted by pretty much everyone that any gay man would molest young boys if given the chance.

But every fiber of Dave’s being is outright _panicking_ at the innocent question Klaus has just asked, forty-fifty-sixty-year-old memories bubbling to the surface, where people told him to his face that he’d better stay the hell away from their children, their boys, shooting him glares that hit harder than the bullet he took in ‘Nam as they herded their kids away from him, small faces looking at him with uncertainty and suspicion, his own gut swirling with nausea and horror and disgust.

“I’m not - no, Klaus, I’m sorry,” Dave manages, in an impressively level voice.

“Oh,” Klaus says. He sounds disappointed, which makes a small worm of guilt wriggle into Dave’s chest, but he pushes it down. He wants Klaus to feel safe, feel cared-for, but that - no. Dave couldn’t manage to _have Klaus in bed with him_ without having a panic attack.

Dave takes a deep, deep breath, and lets it out. He squeezes Klaus briefly, careful not to put pressure on any of his broken bones, and then releases the hug.

Klaus does the same, although he clearly takes great reluctance in doing so, to the point where Dave thinks he might have actually started crying if he could. A pang goes through Dave’s heart at the sight.

“Hey,” he says. He puts his hand on Klaus’ shoulder. “We can spend more time together tomorrow, alright? I just need my beauty sleep - I’m an old man, you know.”

Klaus nods, still wearing that kicked-puppy expression, although at least not one that’s been left out in the rain. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. “Can - can you hug me again tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Dave says immediately. “Of course.”

“Oh,” Klaus says, his shoulders relaxing considerably. “Oh, okay. Thank you. And thank you for that hug. It was - really nice. It was the nicest thing _ever._ ”

“Hugs often are,” Dave smiles a little. “And you can ask me for one anytime, Klaus, okay?”

Klaus’ eye goes round at the offer, and he seems to briefly lose the ability to speak. He nods, looking dazed.

Dave lets him process that, and goes around his apartment picking out things Klaus can do while Dave sleeps. He gathers a few puzzle books, a pack of cards, a couple novels that probably won’t bore a kid and - huh, he forgot about that sketchbook, he’s pretty sure it was a gift from one of his nieces.

He sets it all down on the coffee table and sends an apologetic glance to Klaus. “I hope this will last you through the night,” he says.

Klaus blinks out of the daze he’s in and looks at the items. He seems surprised, and picks over them. “I could make all of this last five _years._ Thank you.”

….Ah. Of course. Dave once again feels his hatred of Reginald Hargreeves double in size.

Klaus looks over to the chair where Ben sits, and nods. He looks back at Dave. “Thank you for - all of this. For taking me in and helping me and - and the hug. Thank you so so much.”

Dave smiles, a little sadly. “Of course, Klaus.” _You deserve all of this, all of this and so much more,_ he doesn’t say, because he doesn’t know if Klaus would agree with that and Dave doesn’t want to start crying just before bed.

Instead he hugs Klaus again, tightly, and Klaus hugs back so fiercely Dave briefly worries for his _own_ bones. Then Dave leaves Klaus to the pile of night-time activities, and prepares himself for bed.

As he gets under the covers, Dave reflects that he certainly didn’t see his life taking this particular turn when he woke up this morning. He never would have guessed.

Still, though. He can’t imagine having it any other way than this.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone. Today is Be Mean To Vanya Day. Please, do continue.
> 
> Trigger warnings at end.

Vanya is very groggy when she wakes up.

That isn’t entirely unusual. She’s usually good at sleeping on a regular basis, but whenever she _doesn’t_ her meds can interact badly with it. She must have overslept, and that’s why she’s feeling like she doesn’t know which way is up and there’s a bunch of cotton in her mouth.

She lies there for a few dozen seconds, trying to pull her mind together enough to make coherent decisions. Eventually, she realizes that if she _has_ overslept, she might have missed practice, and that’s enough to bring her back to full consciousness. She raises her hands to rub at her eyes.

Or she tries, anyways. Her arms - her arms won’t move, for some reason.

And that’s when she realizes it doesn’t just _feel_ like there’s a bunch of cotton in her mouth, but that there actually is something inside her mouth, preventing her from speaking.

Vanya’s eyes fly open, and -

She’s tied to a chair.

She’s tied to a chair, and there’s a gag in her mouth, and there’s - she’s in a -

She’s in a - closet?

The space is tiny, too tiny even for her to fit comfortably, and Vanya feels her breathing speed up. She has - no idea what’s going on, where she is or what happened to her, but she’s never liked small spaces, even elevators are too much most of the time, and that probably shouldn’t be the most alarming thing about this situation but it _is._

The walls are closing in on her, the faint light from the - slats? - in the door only really emphasizing how dark it really is in here. It makes the walls loom over her, high and imposing, and Vanya shrinks down, presses against the chair’s back.

Panic is bubbling up in her mind - the small space, the restraints, the sheer terror and confusion of _what’s going on, what’s happening, I don’t understand_ running through her brain on repeat.

A high-pitched whine starts up somewhere, and it takes Vanya several seconds to realize she’s the one making it. She doesn’t - she doesn’t know if she should be doing that, mostly-forgotten kidnapping protocols flashing through her head, fragments of instruction and training, but she’s too scared to recall them properly. She doesn’t think she could stop the whine if she tried, either.

Her breathing is getting faster, and she tries yanking her arms, but they’re tied - taped? - too tightly to the chair. Vanya tried yanking harder, but it doesn’t work, and the walls are closing in on her _more_ and she can feel her already-racing heartbeat go even faster.

Vanya screams.

She can’t help it. The scream rips out of her like a gunshot, and she couldn’t have held it back if she tried. The gag muffles some of it, a lot of it, but it still comes out, loud and strong, because the walls are pressing against her and the darkness covers her vision and the restraints are holding her down so tightly she can’t even move and _she doesn’t know what’s going on_ and -

The door opens.

The closet door opens, and then light is spilling in, and everything is blurry but there’s a - shape? - in front of her, and then something makes the chair move, and by the time Vanya realizes the blurriness is from the tears that have somehow gathered in her eyes she’s stopped moving and there are several shapes in front of her.

Vanya blinks rapidly, sucking in deep breaths through her nose, and she’s shaking like a leaf in a windstorm, so it takes some time for her to look up and take in her surroundings.

She’s in a hotel room. Or a motel, she’s not sure. Vanya can’t remember the last time she was in a hotel or motel, maybe she never has been. There’s the sound of heavy rain outside. Everything looks normal, as far as rooms go, as far as she’s capable of judging that. Not at all like a place to keep kidnapping victims in.

Because she has been kidnapped.

Because standing there, in front of her, are the two masked strangers who shot up her home several days ago.

Vanya stops breathing. She stares at them, wide-eyed, frozen like a rabbit under a hawk’s gaze.

The shorter one, the woman, wearing the pink dog-mask, hums a little. “Glad you’re finally awake,” she says.

The other one, the taller one, wearing a blue bear-like mask, reaches for her. Vanya flinches back, but he just pulls the gag out of her mouth. It falls down around her neck. The uncomfortable pressure on her jaw, in her mouth, eases slightly, but that doesn’t make her relax even a little.

“Now, I’m sure you’re thinking of screaming for help,” the woman says, folding her arms. From the way her head tilts down slightly, she probably has a disapproving expression under the mask. “But that would be a really bad idea. Even if anyone hears you and cares enough to come looking, we can easily kill you the moment you try. Understand?”

“I - I -” Vanya says, her voice coming out croaky and raw. She nods instead, head bobbing with terror.

“Good,” the woman says. “Now. We just want you to answer a few questions for us. You do that, we’ll be pretty happy with you. Enough to let you go, I’m thinking. You might be suspicious about that, but look - we’re still in our masks. Means we don’t want you seeing our face to identify us later, which means there’s still a chance of there _being_ a later, for you. Got it?”

Vanya feels dizzy, and her breathing still isn’t entirely under control, and she doesn’t think she can manage to speak at all, but she nods again. That - that sounds good. She just wants to leave, go home. She wants to go home, please just let her go home.

She wonders if her siblings know she’s missing. She doesn’t think so. As far as she can remember, she went to bed as normal last night, after spending some time with Leonard at his place.

Leonard. Oh, god, will he notice she’s missing? He has to, she’s been spending a lot of time with him since they met. Surely even if none of her siblings notice she’s gone, he will.

“Okay, great,” the woman says, with a disproportionate amount of cheer. Then she reaches over and picks up -

Vanya’s book.

“What can you tell us about Number Five?” she says.

Vanya freezes.

“What?” she whispers, voice still thready and unsure.

The woman wiggles the book in her hand. The book, Vanya’s book, her thirteen-year-old face staring her down with mocking cruelty, catches the dim light and almost seems to flare with brilliance.

“Number Five,” the man says. “We just want to know about him.”

“More than you’ve already told us, he means,” the woman says, tilting her head.

“I -” Vanya stutters, staring in horror at her book. “I don’t - understand, what - why -”

The woman tosses the book to the floor, and Vanya flinches at the _thump_ it makes. Then the woman leans forward, and Vanya shrinks back in the chair.

“I don’t really think you need to know _why,_ ” the woman says pleasantly, but with a lurking edge buried in her tone. “That’s a little above your paygrade. All you need to know is that we want to find him. Discuss a few things. We were hoping you could help us with that. Do you know where he is?”

“No,” Vanya says hurriedly, because, well she doesn’t. She hasn’t interacted with Five since the day after he came back, and even then he only spoke to her a couple times. More than anyone else, she’s pretty sure, but still. And he didn’t stay overnight like he promised, and on reflection she’s pretty sure he was lying when he said he’d reconsidered that apocalypse stuff he was spouting off. The Five she knew would never give in so easily.

The woman clicks her tongue. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not!” Vanya says, her eyes widening. “I’m not, I swear I’m not, I don’t know, please -”

“Really,” the man says, sitting down on the bed and crossing his ankles. He tilts his head. “Because from the sound of it, you two were pretty close as kids. You’re really telling me he didn’t come to you for help?”

Vanya shakes her head frantically. “No, no, I swear he didn’t -”

Except - that’s not true, is it? He did come to her for help. He came to her and told her about the apocalypse, the end of the world, and she - dismissed him. Questioned him. Doubted him. Because it was insane to consider, the end of the world, the death of the entire human race, as if they all just laid down to die one day. It was completely insane.

….Why were these madmen after him, though?

“You know, I don’t think I believe you,” the woman says.

“No,” Vanya says, terror rising in her. “No, please, I really don’t know, I don’t know where he is, I swear, he barely spoke to me, I don’t _know -_ ”

Thunder rolls outside, low and rumbling, and Vanya flinches. The rain sounds like it’s coming down harder now, and she can almost imagine the patter of it is echoing her own heartbeat.

The woman sighs, like she’s disappointed. She leans in a little closer, and Vanya goes still, frozen in terror.

“Look,” she says, sounding almost friendly, almost lighthearted. “That attack on the Academy was - not really a win for us. I’ll admit that. Your siblings really did a number on us. We should have done recon, should have looked them up past their address. And we did, afterward. Your book cleared up a lot of things. It’s like a Hargreeves Family Handbook, and trust me, if we have to go back in we know exactly how we’re going to handle them.”

Vanya _flinches,_ because - god. _God._ She never - she never _thought_ about that. That her book, that stupid fucking book, could be used to learn her siblings’ weaknesses like that.

Why didn’t she think of that? Why didn’t she realize? Sure, she focused more on their interactions with _her,_ but she did write down the limits of Luther’s strength, the specifics of Diego’s power, the fact that Five couldn’t jump after too many times. She wrote about their personality flaws, which she _saw_ as a child could interfere with their sparring and even real fights. She _knows_ they’re not invincible - Ben’s death proved that - but she still went ahead and spilled their weaknesses for all the world to hear and now these psychopaths are saying what she should have realized five years ago, that she just went and made them into walking targets.

She’s so goddamned _stupid._

“We don’t really want to do that, though,” the woman says. “It’d still be pretty risky. So we decided something lower-stakes would work better.”

“Meaning you,” the man interjects.

The woman nods. “Exactly. You should really have locks on your windows, by the way.”

Vanya has to bite back a hysterical burst of laughter as the woman unintentionally echoes Five’s words from - was it really just four and a half days ago?

“Didn’t know you’d be so small, though,” the man says, tilting his head forward slightly. She gets the impression he’s frowning at her. “The drugs knocked you out longer than expected. We got another pay cut. _That_ was annoying.”

Pay cut? Someone is _paying_ these people to go after Five, after her family? Vanya feels another swell of _terrorterrorterror,_ because that implies a _lot_ of things, but most importantly that whoever wants to kill Five (because she’s not stupid, they’re definitely going to kill Five if they find him) is likely _extremely_ motivated.

“Sure was,” the woman says. “And you know what, Vanya?”

Vanya flinches at the utterance of her name.

“I’m not in that great of a mood right now,” the woman says. The mask manages to look sinister as she tilts it forward, just the barest amount. “So I’m going to ask one more time. _Where is Number Five?_ ”

“I don’t _know,_ ” Vanya whispers, and something inside of her _breaks._

Her vision grows blurry again, but all she can focus on is the soft snort from the woman.

“Well, then,” she says. “Hard way it is.”

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Thunder _booms_ again, even louder than before. Five glances outside, feeling a twinge of annoyance.

The torrential rain started a couple hours ago, and it seems to be here for the long haul. Five huffs out a breath, because this is going to complicate his stakeout immensely.

He really thought he was onto something, after learning of that doctor’s under-the-table dealings. But looking through the man’s black market records revealed that the eye hadn’t been sold yet. _Made,_ yes. It was made several months ago, and struck from the records after winding up in the doctor’s grabby little hands. But it hasn’t been sold.

Not yet, anyways. Five made it perfectly, crystal clear that _anyone_ looking to buy that eye, legally or illegally, would _immediately_ be brought to his attention. If not, that whiney stuck-up _ass_ of a doctor wouldn’t live to see the apocalypse.

Five really needs to keep _close_ for that threat to work, though. If he isn’t there, the doctor might get ideas about alerting security or disobeying his instructions. An unacceptable risk.

However, it’s going to be tricky keeping an eye on MeriTech when the visibility is just about zero.

Groaning softly to himself, Five slumps back to rest against the wall.

_‘It’s not as if this is the worst setback you’ve ever faced,’_ Delores comments from where she’s perched on his desk.

“I know,” Five grumbles, rubbing his hands into his eyes. “But it’s - _frustrating._ I can’t _afford_ any mistakes this close to the finish line. Plus, I doubt the Commission would bring down a rainstorm to mess with me, so I _still_ have no idea when or how they’re going to strike next.”

He’s worried about that, honestly. It’s been days since the department store shootout. Hazel and Cha-Cha aren’t the best in the business (that would be him, in fact) but they’re good. Good enough to have a decent shot at taking him out, if they catch him by surprise. The fact that they’ve been quiet indicates some pretty worrying possibilities.

One is just that they can’t find him. Five has been doing his best to stay away from the Academy so it won’t be targeted, and sleeping in his stolen van at different places around the city whenever he isn’t at MeriTech. He’s only back here _now_ because he needs food.

It would be stupidly optimistic to believe that’s going to work forever, though. The odds are maybe roughly even that they’ve already found him, and are just waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When he’s tired, and off-guard, and not expecting it. He can slaughter them in straight combat and they all know it, when he’s not exhausted and panicking and protecting someone else like in the department store.

So, on top of everything _else_ he has to watch for, looking over his shoulder for Hazel and Cha-Cha is - stressful. Which serves their purpose, of course. It’s fiendishly clever, something he might have come up with himself, where letting his guard down or leaving it up will end with him dead either way. He jumped rather than drove to the Academy, and he knows he should have left Delores behind because that means he won’t be able to jump back with _very_ much supplies, but he just couldn’t leave her undefended.

Five rubs at his eyes again. He hasn’t been getting much sleep lately.

Another look outside makes him grimace. He would swear the rain just keeps doubling in strength, and he startles a bit as a particularly loud thunderclap rattles the window.

Ugh. Today is going to be just _great,_ he can tell.

_‘Just focus on the next step, Five,’_ Delores murmurs. _‘Go get some food.’_

Right. Right. Delores is right, as always. Five takes a deep breath, and nods. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he says.

_‘I’ll be here,’_ Delores says, the closest they ever get to _I love you._

Replying would be entirely superfluous, because she already knows anything he might say in return. So he just nods, and leaves.

Making his way through the house, Five takes Delores’ advice and simply focuses on the things he needs to do right now. He doesn’t have much storage space in the duffel he uses to transport Delores, so he’ll have to be economical with space and weight. No liquids, then, he can survive off public water fountains. High-calorie foods, things that don’t need any more preparation than opening a package. Preferably he’ll be able to wrap up a couple peanut-butter-and-marshmallow sandwiches, but he shouldn’t be too frivolous -

“Careful of the glass there,” comes Allison’s voice.

Five pauses, and looks over to the side. Her voice is coming from the parlor, and now that he’s paying attention there’s the smell of spilled alcohol in the air.

Did they break some of Dad’s alcohol? Five feels a spike of irritation, because no matter how emotionally satisfying that would be, you just _don’t_ waste food or drink. He stalks over to the half-open doors.

The smell gets stronger at his approach, and he wrinkles up his nose as he looks inside.

The room is - well, it’s mostly trashed. There’s broken glass and alcohol _everywhere,_ soaked into the furniture and stinking up the air. He’d usually suggest opening a window or two, but with the rain still lashing down that would probably do more harm than good right now. Five and Klaus’ ridiculous portraits stare down on numbers One through Three as they ineptly wield cleaning supplies.

The sheer _waste_ is what prompts him to speak up, because he knows the alcohol is easily replaceable in a pre-apocalypse world but it still _itches_ to see it all treated so casually.

“What happened here?” he says.

They look up in startlement, Luther even snapping the mop in his hands. Five gives them his best unimpressed face, because if _none_ of them noticed his arrival then he definitely stands by his decision to cut them out of the apocalypse investigation. If they displayed such poor situational awareness in front of Dad, he’d make them do laps around the Academy until they puked.

“Diego had a tantrum,” Luther says.

“I did _not,_ ” Diego hisses.

“You kind of did,” Allison says, surveying the room. Five can’t help but agree.

“Well, why’d you do that?” Five asks, because he wants to know why the hell all this perfectly fine liquor went to waste.

“None of your business,” Diego snaps.

Luther and Allison just roll their eyes. Evidently, this is not a new answer.

“Why not get Mom to clean up?” Five says, eyeing the inept way Allison is holding a sponge. He didn’t even know there _was_ an inept way to hold a sponge, but Allison is managing it.

None of them answer him, and suddenly the room is filled with tension. Five looks between them and raises an eyebrow.

“Five,” Luther says hesitantly, stepping forward. “Mom is - gone.”

“Dead,” Diego says harshly. “She’s dead, Luther.”

Five blinks. “Really? How’d that happen?”

“Your friends paid a visit,” Luther says, glaring at him.

“....What,” Five says.

“Yeah,” Allison says, rubbing her face. “Three nights ago? Couple masked psychos broke into the Academy, said they were looking for you. We fought them off, but - Mom was a casualty.”

Five is taking a step back before he realizes it, and he reasserts an iron grip over his body. Everything is suddenly - very distant, all of a sudden.

“Five?” Allison says, stepping forward.

“I’m fine,” he says automatically. Then, “Was anyone else hurt?”

“Vanya got knocked on the head, and Luther’s a monkey now, but apparently that’s nothing new,” Diego says offhandedly. “That’s all.”

Luther clenches his jaw at Diego’s words, a look of pain crossing his face. Allison lays a hand on his arm, though, and he softens as he looks at her. He puts his hand on top of hers, more gently than he usually is even with her.

Right. Five isn’t even going to try to detangle that little exchange. “Is Vanya alright?” he says, focusing on the important part.

“She went home, and I’ve checked on her a couple times since,” Allison says. “No need to worry.”

Thunder cracks outside, and rain lashes against the windows.

“Good,” Five says, although he still feels uneasy. And incredibly stupid. God, of _course_ they attacked the Academy. They wouldn’t have known he’s not here unless they checked first. Five promised himself he wouldn’t bring harm to any more of his siblings, and then he went and led it straight to their door. _Fuck,_ he’s such an _idiot._

“You want to help clean this up?” Diego says, lifting a broom challengingly. Although his face says pretty clearly that he knows what Five’s response will be.

Five decides not to disappoint. He gives Diego his most unsettling grin. “I was raised to believe we should all clean up our own messes,” he says. After all, isn’t that what he’s been doing for the past forty-five years?

Diego snorts. “Yeah, sure.”

“Five, could you at least help a little?” Allison asks. “We can’t find Pogo anywhere, it’s just us.”

“I still think that’s weird,” Diego says, frowning. “We should have found him, it’s not like he would have left.”

“Well, he’s been looking over Dad’s papers and all for days, I think he deserves a break,” Luther says firmly. “God knows Dad had records of absolutely everything, and he never let anyone look at any of it. Pogo’s probably swamped.”

“Please, Five?” Allison says, ignoring their brothers and giving Five a pleading look.

“...Wait,” Diego says. “Everything?”

“Well, yeah, everything important,” Luther says.

“I’m in the middle of something far more important than cleaning,” Five says, not bothering to sugarcoat it. Allison’s half-exasperated, half-hurt look slides off him like water off a tin roof. Really, she should be thanking him. The longer he stays here, the higher the risk of Hazel and Cha-Cha coming for him here. He needs to be gone _now._

“Do you think Dad has Mom’s schematics tucked away somewhere?” Diego asks, and his voice has the same desperate, wild hope in it that Five has nursed for forty-five years.

Luther and Allison pause, looking over at Diego with stunned expressions.

“....Maybe,” Luther says slowly, then gains in confidence. “Yeah, he must have, they must be somewhere.”

“We could repair her,” Allison says, bringing a hand to her mouth.

Five leaves the room. It’s nice that they’re thinking about how to save Grace, and all, but he’s more focused on saving all of _them._ He’s not going to risk them any more than he has to.

**********

_This isn’t risking,_ Five tells himself as he peers through the rain at Vanya’s apartment. _It’s just checking in._

It’s not a totally convincing argument, especially when he can’t even tell if her lights are on through the torrent coming down. Honestly, if he hadn’t seen the future with his own eyes he would start suspecting the apocalypse would be caused by another Great Flood.

Sighing, Five jumps from the awning he’s under to Vanya’s living room. She’d better appreciate him coming to check up on her, no matter the fact that his heart hasn’t stopped beating faster than normal since he heard he got hit on the head during the attack (that was his fault).

Immediately, he realizes something is wrong.

Rain and wind whips around Vanya’s living room, and Five jumps (actually jumps, not teleports) as he realizes her window is open, allowing the elements access to his sister’s apartment. Five hisses as he rushes over to it and wrestles it closed.

The window rattles dangerously, but holds firm. Five stares at it in disgust, and looks down at himself. He’s splattered with rain, after having spent the last several hours managing to keep dry as he jumped all around the city. Goddamnit.

“Vanya?” he calls, not expecting an answer. He’d like to think his favorite sibling has more sense than to leave her window open in a rainstorm while she’s still in the apartment.

Sure enough, there’s no answer, and her lights are all off. She’s probably at work or something. Five scowls and prepares to jump away, chastising himself for the lost time, when -

He sees her violin case.

He stops.

Frowns.

Looks around.

Slowly, his eyes settle on the window he just closed.

_“You should have locks on your windows,”_ he can hear his own voice say, the start of that disastrous conversation from several days ago.

The breath freezes in his lungs.

Five can’t remember exactly what he does next. It’s all a bunch of freeze-frames, snapshots of moments burned into his brain, illuminated by the lighting outside.

Finding Vanya’s bed empty, her purse still hanging by the door.

Noticing the empty syringe on the floor, unmarked and unardorned, as good as a calling-card.

Tearing through the rest of her apartment, looking for other clues and finding none.

Searching the phone book for all the motels in the city.

Jumping to one, then another, then another, exhaustion in his veins as he doesn’t give himself a moment of rest, snatching the logs of who’s renting rooms at each place before moving onto the next.

And then -

There they are.

Five freezes in place, and it feels like time itself has stopped, the lighting strike stretching out into infinity as he reads the names on the paper in front of him.

_Hazel & Cha-Cha, Room 225_

The thunderclap that comes next makes everything quite literally come _crashing_ down again, and Five takes his first breath in the past twenty minutes.

He found them.

He found them, and he found Vanya, and _he cannot mess this up._

Because he will, if he doesn’t think. Not thinking is how he fucked this up in the _first_ place. He never thought - never even _considered_ \- that they might go after Vanya. He never thought they might target his siblings specifically to draw him out, never thought staying away from his family introduced _more_ vulnerability instead of less, never wondered if they might change their strategy of chasing him directly.

He’s such a _fucking **moron.**_

A pained groan cuts through Five’s racing thoughts. He spares a glance down at the desk clerk, slowly waking up from Five’s knockout.

Five quickly replaces the logbook, and jumps out of the office. Maybe the clerk will realize he was assaulted and call the cops, maybe he’ll think he just fell and hit his head, Five doesn’t really care. If the cops _do_ get called, they certainly won’t arrive anytime soon in _this_ weather, and Five intends to wrap this up quickly.

The rain does make it hard to see where the doors of the motel are, so Five has to waste time walking around and peering at the numbers, feeling his skin crawl at the delay. But then, within minutes -

He’s standing outside Room 225.

Five looks at it, and his heart seems to stop beating all of a sudden, and he stops breathing, and even the sound of the rain falls away for one long, long second.

Which is enough for him to her, very faintly -

a small whimper.

Five jumps.

He doesn’t think about it. Doesn’t pause. Doesn’t even stop to breathe. All he can think is _VanyaVanyaVanya,_ the fact that she’s _hurting_ in there, she’s _being hurt,_ and all because he fucked up, it’s his fault his fault _his fault -_

He lands, and he spins around as he hears a startled yelp.

Quickly, he takes in the scene.

He almost wishes he couldn’t.

Vanya is there. She’s tied to a chair in the middle of the room, lit by the weak glow of the bedside table. Her shirt is in tatters, and there are rivulets of blood all over her bare skin, and her face is bruised to hell and back. She’s breathing hard, and she’s clearly been crying - she still is. Her eyes are wide, wider than he’s ever seen them, and they’re locked on him like he’s the goddamn Second Coming.

Hazel and Cha-Cha are there too, and it’s Hazel who let out the yelp, if Five isn’t mistaken. They’re wearing those stupid masks, and a small part of Five is pleased at that, because they’re sure to interfere with peripheral vision.

The rest of Five’s mind is cloaked in an icy, brilliant rage.

“Shit!” Cha-Cha yells, just as Five jumps again.

He isn’t playing like he was in the diner, there’s no thought of avoidance like in the department store. The one and only thought in Five’s mind is getting Vanya out of danger, and the best way to do that is to _tear these fuckers limb from fucking limb._

He lands on Cha-Cha’s shoulders, throwing his weight backward. She overbalances and tumbles down, Five jumping away at the last second. He knows Hazel is enhanced, but Five’s childhood taught him that even the toughest human can’t no-sell knife wounds. He grabs the knife on the side table, welcomes the surge of rage at seeing there’s already blood on it, and stabs at Hazel.

Hazel dodges, but Five jumps again and lands right in his path, knife already thrusting out, and it pierces Hazel’s side. Hazel grunts and falls, catching himself quickly, but he’s distracted enough that Five can look back at Cha-Cha.

He isn’t fast enough, though, and he’s just in time to feel his shoulder _explode_ with pain as a gunshot rings out.

Five lets out a cry of pain, and he thinks he hears Vanya scream, and he falls, but _he can’t afford to fall._ He jumps as he’s halfway to the floor, which end up with him awkwardly flopping on the bed and all the wind being driven out of him as his body informs him that he’s been jumping almost nonstop for the past thirty minutes and he just got _shot_ and it can’t really take much more.

He ignores it, because of course he does, because he has to, and he scrambles up. Hazel seems to have jumped onto the floor where Five was supposed to fall, and is trying to pick himself up now. Cha-Cha is swinging her gun over to where he is _shit -_

Five jumps early enough this time that he’s gone before the bullet rips through space. He dropped the knife but they’re kind enough to not be wearing armor, and as he lands behind Cha-Cha he lashes out with his working arm.

She yelps as his strike hits a very painful nerve center, and can’t help but briefly lose control of her legs. She crumples to the ground, and Five moves fast, faster than he’s ever moved, and he snatches up her gun and she barely has time to realize it before -

He shoots her in the heart.

Then he jumps again, the world going dizzy for a brief moment, to right behind where Hazel just was, squeezing off a shot even before his vision clears. Then it does, and he sees Hazel has scrambled away from the spot and is whirling around and _shit he has his own gun -_

Getting shot _again_ is very unpleasant.

Five falls again, but he squeezes off another round on his way down. He breaks his fall with his bad arm, even if it hurts, and forces his other arm steady as he lifts it and fires again.

Hazel falls like a limp ragdoll.

Five sucks in a breath, noting that it seems kind of shallow. His vision swims, and he lists to the side.

“Five? Five!” he hears, and he blinks as he looks up. Vanya is still in the chair, staring at him with terror-filled eyes, straining against her bonds. She yanks, hard, and it doesn’t break her restraints but it does cause the chair to tip over.

The gun drops from Five’s fingers. He should probably hold onto it, even if Cha-Cha and Hazel are really dead, because who knows who else the Commission might send to hurt his sister. Five tries to pick up the gun again, but his fingers don’t seem to want to cooperate. They’re fumbling and clumsy, and he frowns.

He can’t seem to breathe very well. He noticed that, but now it’s seeming a little more urgent. He coughs, and it feels kind of wet.

“Five! _Five!_ ” Vanya is shouting. He wants to tell her she’s safe now, so she can stop shouting. She doesn’t have to look so scared anymore. He won’t let anyone hurt her. He won’t let her become like Klaus, like Ben, just another sad casualty of the Umbrella Academy.

She doesn’t listen, though, which is fair because he doesn’t think he manages to say it out loud. His entire mouth is filled with something, and he knows he should know the name of this substance, know the label to put to such a strong copper-penny taste, but he can’t quite remember it right now. It’s probably not important. The important thing is Vanya. He just needs to remember how to breathe, and then he can tell her that it’s all going to be fine.

Five might have to sleep first, though. Jumping around that much was exhausting. He can feel blackness creeping in at the edges of his mind, feels the way his body is shutting down. He’s annoyed at that, but it was probably inevitable. He’s been pushing himself for so long. He’s so very tired.

He hopes Vanya will be fine while he rests. She’s still shouting, screaming for him, but she’s safe, he knows she is. He made sure of it. So she’ll realize that soon, and calm down.

He just wants to rest. Forty-five years, and this feels like the first rest he’s had.

The last thing Five hears is a thunderclap so loud it shakes the room, and the last thing he sees is a flash of lighting so bright it turns the whole world white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: kidnapping, non-con drug use, claustrophobia, implied (non-graphic) torture, violence, murder.
> 
> So! Who forgot about Hazel and Cha-Cha? Be honest.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings at end.

“Be _careful!_ ” Luther snaps.

Diego rolls his eyes, because of course he does. Luther should have just searched Dad’s office himself, although he knows Diego never would have agreed to that. Probably his brother thinks that if Luther found Mom’s schematics he’d burn them.

Well, he wouldn’t. Luther has to be strong, make the tough decisions, be a _leader,_ but that doesn’t mean he’s heartless. He wants to fix Mom just as much as his siblings do, now that there’s a viable avenue for it. In all honesty, Luther is kicking himself for not remembering that Dad must have her schematics earlier.

Although he’s kind of regretting saying so in front of Diego.

“Christ, Diego!” Luther says, snatching up the papers his brother just threw on the floor. “This stuff is _important!_ ”

“I’m sure it is,” Diego says lazily. “More important than we could ever be, in his eyes.”

Luther’s grip tightens, and he has to consciously relax it before he tears the papers in his hand. He makes up for it by glaring at Diego.

“Boys,” Allison’s unamused voice cuts in. Luther glances sheepishly at her.

Diego doesn’t, but at least he doesn’t make another snide comment. That’s probably the most Luther can hope for, from him.

Being inside Dad’s office never fails to give Luther a thrill. The entire room is steeped in power, and Luther can almost feel Dad’s presence. He wonders, if Klaus were here, he’d be able to call forth Dad’s ghost. That would be - nice. Seeing Dad again, knowing that he isn’t _truly_ gone. Maybe when Klaus comes home he can do that.

The rain outside is coming down in a torrent, the hardest Luther has seen in - his entire life, probably. It’s even worse than it was when Ben died.

Suddenly, there’s a _CRACK_ that shakes the entire house, and lightning so bright Luther briefly sees nothing but whiteness. Luther stumbles a bit, and has to hold himself up with a hand.

He blinks a few times, trying to bring back his vision. It slowly swims back into focus, spots still freckling his vision.

“Wow,” Allison says shakily, looking outside, her eyes wide. “That was - intense.”

“Yeah,” Luther says, working his jaw. His ears pop.

“Scared of a little thunder?” Diego says, but Luther can see how his brother’s pupils are shrunken, and his tone is a little shakier than usual.

“That wasn’t thunder,” Allison says. “That was the bell indicating Judgement Day is upon us.”

Luther snorts a little, and Allison gives a small smile back. Luther can feel himself relaxing, now that there’s some humor in the air. Trust Allison to put him at ease. And it’s a good sign for her, too, because Luther can’t quite get that memory of her crying in the hallway yesterday out of his head.

She still hasn’t told him what that was about. Which is her decision, of course, but it still bothers him. He would almost be tempted to say it was a breakdown over losing Claire, but she didn’t _just_ seem miserable and gutted (although that was definitely present), but _scared._ Terrified of - someone, something. He knows she’s worried she’ll be separated from Claire permanently, but her breakdown in the hallways seemed more - visceral, immediate, than that.

Frankly, everyone is breaking down these days. Luther glances over at Diego just in time to see him shaking a fancy box until it pops open.

“Oh, hey,” Diego says, holding up a familiar red journal. “Remember this?”

“....Oh, that was - Dad wrote about our powers in there, didn’t he?” Allison says, setting down the papers in her hand and drifting over to Diego.

Luther finds himself intrigued as well, but…. “Put it back, we shouldn’t read his personal things.”

“Actually, it’s about _us,_ so if anything we have a _right_ to read this,” Diego says, raising his eyebrows and flipping open the journal.

Allison looks at Luther semi-apologetically. “I am kind of curious,” she confesses.

“I….” Luther wavers, coming over to stand next to them. He looks down at the journal with a mixture of dread and nervousness. On one hand, he _does_ want to know what Dad wrote about them, all those years. On the other hand, this is _definitely_ an invasion of privacy, no matter how Diego rationalizes it.

Then the page falls open to read _Number One,_ and Luther’s breath leaves his body.

Against his better judgement, Luther’s eyes skim the pages. It’s mostly initial measurements after obtaining him as an infant, height and weight and discovering his strength. Diego flips the page and Luther reads about Dad’s early experiments, testing Luther’s control and limits as a toddler. He’s pleased to see that Dad noted down how he has an ‘excellent grasp of control.’

Diego huffs out an annoyed breath and flips further. Luther almost tells him to stop, go back, but then he reconsiders. Does he really want his siblings to see Dad’s thoughts on his transformation, if Dad wrote down any of his thoughts about that? No, Diego would definitely take advantage of that, twist Dad’s words around and stab Luther in the heart.

Then the journal falls open to _Number Four._

They all freeze.

“....Keep going,” Allison says, her voice choked with some unidentifiable emotion.

Diego doesn’t move, staring at the page.

_“Diego!”_ Allison snaps, and Luther blinks at her in startlement. She sounds - really upset, for some reason. He knew she felt guilty about the meeting that drove Klaus to run away, but this seems oddly intense.

Suddenly Diego pulls himself out of his paralysis and grabs a bunch of pages, turning them so roughly that they rip.

“Hey!” Luther says, grabbing at the book. But Diego’s grip is unexpectedly weak, causing Luther to misjudge the amount of force and throw the book on the ground.

_“Fuck off,”_ Diego snarls, with an honestly surprising amount of hostility. Luther knows they aren’t on the best of terms (probably the worst terms in the family, except for Diego and Dad), but Luther doesn’t think they were at a tipping point.

“Hey, look,” Luther says, holding up his hands. “I think looking in there was a bad idea, we should just keep looking for Mom’s blueprints.”

Diego is clearly itching for a fight, but if there’s anything that can get him to calm down, it’s Mom. He clearly has to restrain himself from jumping at Luther, spewing out more taunts and insults, and Luther tries to brace himself, but -

“Fine,” Diego spits, and Luther breathes a sigh of relief in unison with Allison.

Allison bends over to pick up the journal, and Luther turns back to Dad’s shelves. He probably wouldn’t have Mom’s blueprints right at hand, they’re likely tucked away somewhere, so -

“....Oh my god.”

Allison’s voice is low and shocked, barely a whisper, and Luther finds himself hurrying over to her before he knows it.

“What is it, Allison?” he says, crouching down next to her and putting a hand on her back. She doesn’t seem to notice, hand over her mouth and staring at the page the journal fell open to.

“What, do we have a secret sibling hidden in the basement or something?” Diego says, coming over and peering over them to look at the journal as well.

At first, Luther doesn’t understand what he’s reading. It doesn’t have a convenient header at the top, so he just sees snatches of _extremely dangerous_ and _extraordinarily powerful_ and -

_Mood-altering medication to keep her sedated._

“What?” Luther hears someone say, either him or Diego, he’s not sure. Either way, he looks at Allison, his heart suddenly jackhammering away in his chest.

“You were sedated?” Luther says, his brain in turmoil, everything thrown askew.

She looks at him, her eyes wide. “No,” she says. “No, Luther, not me.”

“What?” he says dumbly. It says so, right there, what does she mean?

Diego drops to his knees on the floor beside them, his face stunned. “Vanya,” he says, voice faint. “She means Vanya. Vanya has powers.”

The words -

The words don’t make sense.

“No she doesn’t,” Luther says, unsure why they would say that. Vanya is ordinary. They all know that. They’ve always known that. Dad said so, and Dad would know.

“Luther,” Allison says, softly, face slowly crumpling into horror, despair, realization. “Luther, look.”

She points at the page, and Luther reads -

_Employed Number Three’s rumors on all the children. None remember, all consider her ordinary. Will monitor the situation, but I believe it stable._

Luther -

Luther -

He doesn’t know what to say.

Diego finds something, though. He always finds something to say. He lets out a harsh, grating laugh.

“Wow,” he says. “ _Wow._ Jesus fuck, I don’t - I don’t know why I never thought of that. I always thought the worst of him, but - jesus _fuck,_ looks like he decided to outdo himself.”

“She has powers?” Luther says faintly. He realizes Allison is crying, silently, big tears running down her face, but for the first time in his life he can’t bring himself to comfort her right away. “Vanya has powers?”

“Try to keep up, Tarzan,” Diego snipes. He lets out another harsh laugh. “Fuck. He’s even more of a monster than I thought.”

“No,” Luther defends automatically. His head is spinning, whirling, but - no, Dad must have had a reason. He wouldn’t just do this for _no reason._ “No, Diego, look, he says she was dangerous, that she didn’t have control.” Luther’s fingers point out the words. “He had to do it, he had to do what was best for us.”

“Oh, _grow up,_ Luther!” Diego snaps. “Dad drugged and brainwashed our sister for _twenty-five years,_ I doubt he had our best interests in mind!”

“And what if she killed one of us?” Luther challenges, a fire bursting to life inside his chest. “If she accidentally lost control and set off her powers” god, Vanya has _powers_ “near one of us and we died, do you think that would be better? He was thinking of the greater good!”

“The only control he was worried about was his own,” Diego shoots back, eyes glittering with rage. “I can tell you that much, without even needing to read the rest.”

“We have to tell her,” Allison says.

“What?” Luther says, caught off guard. He looks at her.

“We have to tell her,” Allison repeats. She wipes at her face and takes several deep, shaky breaths. “God, she - she deserves to know.”

“Fuck, _that’s_ going to be a conversation,” Diego snorts. “She’s _definitely_ going to write a sequel.”

“Could you stop harping on about that book for _one_ day?” Allison says.

“Maybe if Five time-travels and erases it from existence, sure,” Diego says.

“Diego -”

“I don’t know if we should tell her,” Luther says.

They both look at him.

“What?” Allison says.

“Look, I don’t like it,” Luther says, feeling a nest of snakes squirming around inside his belly. “But what’s the most likely outcome if she knows? She’ll want to access her powers. And if she was uncontrolled _then,_ who knows what would happen now?”

As if to punctuate his words, a distant roll of thunder rumbles through the air. Luther glances out the window, and is relieved to see that the rain has slowed down to a steady, monotonous drizzle.

“Luther, she _needs_ to know this!” Allison says.

“You know, I wasn’t totally sold, but now I _know_ telling her’s the right thing to do, if _you_ don’t want to,” Diego says idly, pulling out a knife and starting to clean his fingernails.

“Dad wouldn’t have done this if there were any other choice -” Luther tries.

“Stop,” Allison says. “Luther, just stop.”

Luther’s jaw stops working all of a sudden, and he stares at Allison, dumbfounded. Diego raises his eyebrows.

“Dad was wrong,” Allison says. Luther can’t find any words to refute her, not when Allison is staring at him with kind eyes and a soft, tired expression. “Dad was wrong about - about so many things, Luther. He was wrong to treat us like he did growing up, he was wrong to make us fight, he was wrong to hurt Vanya. He was _wrong._ We’re all so fucked up, and - some of that’s on us, but most of it’s on him. He treated us like soldiers, not children, and you don’t do that to people you love, Luther. You just don’t.”

There’s silence in the office for several long, long seconds, where Luther can’t get his tongue working again, and the only sound is the faint patter of rain on the window. Then Diego lets out a long, low whistle.

“Never thought I’d hear you say that,” he says, looking at Allison with a glimmer of - respect? - in his eyes.

“People change, Diego,” she says tiredly, placing a hand on Luther’s.

“Luther doesn’t,” Diego says, flicking a dismissive glance towards Luther. “Or, well, not mentally, anyways.”

Luther stands abruptly, leaving Allison blinking up at him. He clenches his fists and looks between Allison and Diego.

“You don’t get it,” he says, feeling anger simmering low in his belly. “You don’t - you don’t _get_ what it’s like to be a leader, to have to make those kinds of decisions. It’s easy for you to be outraged, but you’re looking at it from the outside, you don’t know what he was thinking when he did it.”

Allison scrambles to her feet, hand hovering outstretched between them. “Luther -”

“Oh, you want to know what he thinks of us?” Diego says, scooping the journal off the floor. He pages through it. “Hey, why don’t we find out? Let’s look at what he wrote when Five ran away. Oh, here it is - _Number Five has not returned. When he does, the punishment will be severe._ And then - _He is still alive. Arrogant child, to stay away. Think of more severe punishment for his return._ ”

“He didn’t know Five was stuck!” Luther snaps. “If he knew -”

“How about _Klaus?_ ” Diego throws out, his eyes snapping with pain. Allison sucks in a sharp breath, and Diego turns more pages with an almost manic energy. “Let’s see what the old bastard thought about Klaus, huh?”

“Diego,” Allison says, her voice wobbling. She’s clenching her fist tightly, tight enough that she’ll probably leave little crescents in her palm. “Don’t, please don’t. Not now.”

“He thought Klaus would come back,” Luther says lowly. “He always, always believed it. Even when you didn’t.”

“Because I’m not a naive _idiot -_ ” Diego says, turning a few more pages, eyes scanning the writing, before freezing.

Allison takes several deep breaths, clearly struggling to regain control over herself. Luther wants to comfort her, be her rock like when they were younger, but her words from earlier still sting. She was always on his side as kids, she _knew_ why Dad did the things he did. He doesn’t understand why she would decide to abandon that.

“Look,” she says. “Look. We need - we need to decide what to do about Vanya. Figuring that out - that’s the most important thing here.”

Luther presses his lips together, but he nods. He and Allison can discuss Dad later, when things aren’t so heated. Right now, they need to talk about whether it’s the right thing to do to tell Vanya about her powers.

“No,” Diego says, very softly.

They both look at him. “No?” Allison says, confused.

Diego is staring at the journal, eyes fixed on the page. His grip has slackened enough that it seems in danger of falling, but Diego doesn’t notice. He doesn’t respond to them, either.

“Diego? Are you okay?” Luther asks, because Diego’s face is kind of alarmingly pale, his expression slack with horror.

“What’s wrong?” Allison says, going over to him. Luther follows, and they peer around to look at the page Diego is on.

It is, Luther determines after a second or two, the logs of Klaus trying to contact Five after his disappearance. Dad doesn’t go into detail about how, which Luther was always curious about, just the fact that Five consistently failed to show and that’s as good as a guarantee that he was still alive. Which, of course, was the truth.

Then, Luther’s eyes catch on a small paragraph at the bottom of the page, where Dad wrote -

_Number Four is now deceased. He threw another fit, and bashed his head against the wall repeatedly. Lingered for several hours, then died. The children have been informed he ran away._

And

the

world

goes

silent.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Vanya feels numb.

Earlier, she was in so much pain she could hardly think straight, just broken fragments of _I don’t know_ and _please stop._ But now all of that pain is gone, and she just feels….numb.

She’s not entirely sure how she got here. She’s in a hospital room, and she’s absolutely swathed in bandages. She vaguely remembers people doing that, doctors in pristine coats and nurses with kind eyes. She even, if she strains her memory, remembers the gentle policewoman who brought her out of the motel room and sent her off with the ambulance.

None of that is really all that important, though. Not at all.

Because Five is dead.

She watched him die. She saw him get shot, twice, in the process of saving _her,_ and then he bled out on the dirty motel floor right in front of her, light slowly slipping out of his eyes until his body went limp, and it felt like her heart exploded in her chest.

She hasn’t been able to feel anything since.

It’s funny, really. The sort of funny where it’s not funny at all, of course, but Vanya spent seventeen years waiting for him to come home. Seventeen years of hoping and wishing and waiting. And then he did, and he was distant, and curt, and spouting off about the end of times, and honestly Vanya thought, after she didn’t see him again after three conversations, that it was almost like he hadn’t come back at all. Like he was always going to be gone from her life, like even physically being there didn’t mean he was _really_ there. There have been times over the past few days where she questioned just how different their current state is compared to when he was gone, and she thought it was honestly pretty similar.

Now he really is gone. And she’s learning _exactly_ what the difference is.

“Excuse me, miss?”

It takes Vanya several seconds to realize that the voice is addressing her. It takes her several more to muster up the will to turn her head towards the sound.

A woman is standing by her bedside. She’s wearing a police uniform, and she looks Latina, reasonably pretty. Vanya is usually jealous of pretty women, inevitably comparing her own looks to theirs like she has with Allison her whole life, but now she doesn’t feel anything.

Amazing what watching your brother die will do for your perspective.

“I’m Detective Patch, can I ask you a few questions?” the officer says.

Vanya stares blankly at her. She should probably respond, but the most she can come up with is an apathetic shrug.

Detective Patch’s face looks pained as she takes a seat. She looks Vanya in the eye.

“I’m going to level with you,” she says. “I’m a - friend - of Diego’s. So when I saw the uniform that kid was wearing, and the tattoo on his wrist, I knew it had to do with the Umbrella Academy. Your presence confirmed it. The thing is, I don’t know anything more than that, so I was hoping you could fill in the gaps for me.”

It - _hurts,_ suddenly, abruptly, to hear Five described as ‘that kid.’ Like he’s just some random person _(body)_ instead of her brother, her brother who died in front of her.

“Five,” she says.

“Sorry?” Detective Patch says.

“His name,” Vanya says, “was _Five._ ”

“Of course, I’m sorry,” Detective Patch says, and the only thing that stops Vanya from punching her in the face is that it looks like she actually means that. “Five. You….knew him, then.”

“You didn’t read my book?” Vanya says, feeling a fresh well of pain in her chest. “ _Everyone_ read my book.”

Including the hitmen sent after her brother, who used that information to lure him in and kill him.

“No,” Detective Patch says softly. “I didn’t read your book.”

Vanya closes her eyes, and winds the blanket around her fingers. Tightly enough to hurt, even through the painkillers.

“My brother,” she whispers. “He was my brother. He left, when we - when we were kids, and he just came back. We just got him _back._ ”

“....I’m so sorry,” Detective Patch says, sounding stunned.

Vanya doesn’t bother responding. They’re just words, just empty words. They won’t bring Five back. Nothing can bring Five back, not this time.

“Miss Hargreeves,” Detective Patch says after a moment. “Do you want me to call Diego?”

No. No, she doesn’t want Diego to come. She knows what he’ll say. He’ll say it’s her fault, because it is. She’s the one who wrote that fucking book, the one that told the assassins exactly how to target her brother. She’s the one that got taken hostage, forcing Five to come and rescue her. She’s the one who was entirely useless in that fight, useless and scared, too scared to even try and distract the assassins. She’s the one who couldn’t even give Five first aid, just watched him bleed out in front of her while she was tied to that _fucking_ chair.

It’s her _fault._

But then, she deserves to have that said to her. Her family deserves to know just how badly she fucked up. They deserve to know that Five is dead, dead for real, no more miraculous returns. They deserve to have a say in what happens to - what’s left of their brother.

Yesterday, she thought there was nothing she could do that could make them hate her more.

She knows differently now.

Detective Patch seems to take her silence as a yes. Vanya is almost grateful for that, in a way. She can’t say no, don’t call him, because she doesn’t deserve to say that. But she can’t say yes, either. She’s too much of a coward.

The Detective leaves to go make the call, and Vanya wonders if Diego will hit her, when he shows up. He’s never been physically violent with her, even that one time they ran into each other at the store just two months after her book came out. He glared at her then, and for a moment she really, genuinely thought he was going to pull a knife and kill her, but he didn’t. He just walked away.

It made her feel almost as small as she’s feeling now.

And there’s Allison and Luther to think about, too. Allison probably won’t be surprised. She’s been friendly, these past few days, but it’s obvious that Vanya’s sister doesn’t respect her choices or consider her capable on her own, courting disaster at every turn. This….honestly just confirms that. Allison just saw the writing on the wall, and did her best to stop her from making this kind of mistake. Vanya wishes she could have seen that.

Luther….she doesn’t know how Luther will react. He’ll be angry, of course. They’ll all be angry. She hopes he isn’t mad enough to hurt her, but he probably will be, just like Diego. She got Five killed. She got their brother _killed._ There’s really no forgiveness for that, especially with her previous transgression.

Vanya drifts, and she feels tears slipping down her face. She doesn’t bother wiping them away.

**********

It’s some time later when she hears voices.

Vanya honestly doesn’t know if she was asleep or not. She doesn’t remember the past - however long it’s been, but neither does she really wake up in the usual sense. It’s more like she notices consciousness from the corner of her eye, and then fully turns to face it.

There isn’t even a moment of fuzz where she forgets that Five is dead. She wants that moment so much, even if remembering will hit twice as hard.

“Miss Hargreeves?” a nurse says, opening the door and peering in. “Your family is here, would you like me to send them in?”

No, they aren’t here. Not all of them. She hasn’t had all of her family since she was thirteen, and she barely even had them then.

Nevertheless, she nods dully. Might as well get it over with.

The nurse eyes her for a moment, but closes the door. There are a few more murmured voices outside, and if Vanya tries she can hear Diego’s sharp tone, Luther’s low rumble, Allison’s soothing words.

She tries to hold onto that. It’s probably the last time she’ll ever hear them not raised in anger.

Then -

the door opens.

Selfishly, Vanya closes her eyes. She just - she can’t look at them. Not yet. She doesn’t know if it’ll be worse or better to not see their anger coming, but she’s too much of a coward to find out.

Behind her eyelids, Vanya watches Five bleed out again, going limp on the carpet. She should have bled instead. Not like anyone would miss her.

_“Vanya,”_ Allison says.

Vanya flinches. She can’t help it. Her body tenses up for an attack, a shout, anything, and her wounds all tighten in remembered agony.

There’s the sound of footsteps, and Vanya tenses as they get closer. Then Allison is by her bedside, and the only sound in the room is four sets of breathing, layered on top of each other. Only four, when there should be seven.

“Vanya, I -” Allison’s voice catches. “I’m so sorry.”

The words -

The words don’t make sense.

Vanya’s eyes blink open to see Allison standing there, and she’s looking down at Vanya and -

crying?

Well, of course she’s crying. Her brother just died. But why - why is she _apologizing?_ To _Vanya,_ of all people?

“What?” Vanya says, croaky and raw.

She looks over at Diego and Luther, and -

They’re also crying. Diego is clearly trying not to, but he’s fighting a losing battle. Luther apparently surrendered some time ago, and there are tears falling down his face. He wipes at his eyes, but more just spring forward.

“I’m sorry,” Allison says, drawing Vanya’s attention back to her sister. Allison reaches out a hand, but doesn’t actually touch Vanya’s arm, wrapped in clean white bandages to cover the cigarette burns. “I’m so sorry, Vanya, I didn’t - none of us even considered they’d come back, we didn’t think - and now -”

“I told him,” Diego says abruptly. He’s still trying to stop himself from crying, likely by turning all his emotion into anger, but it isn’t working very well. “I fucking _told_ him we could help. But he didn’t fucking _listen,_ and now he’s d-dead.”

Allison and Luther flinch slightly, but not Vanya. Hearing it said out loud hurts, it hurts so much, but nothing in the world can ever hurt as much as the image waiting for her every time she closes her eyes.

“Vanya,” Luther says, and Vanya shrinks in on herself as she looks at him. He’s clearly fighting to keep his composure, and she wonders how long it’s going to be before his grief over Five’s death stops overshadowing his anger at her for causing it. “Vanya, are you - okay?”

That - isn’t what she was expecting. She blinks.

“Of course she’s not okay, Luther, she was fucking tortured,” Diego snaps.

“Calm down,” Allison says.

“Calm down?” Diego says, raising his voice. Vanya presses herself back against the bed, because oh, there it is, he’s showing his anger now. “ _Calm down?_ Do you know what these past few days have been like? We became orphans within the past week. We basically just lost _two_ siblings in the past couple _hours._ Our sister was kidnapped and tortured just when we found out our _dad_ was even more of a monster than any of us ever imagined. Don’t you tell me to fucking _stay calm!_ ”

“What do you mean, two?” Vanya says.

They all look at her again, and Vanya freezes. She curses herself for bringing their attention back on her.

“That -” Allison hesitates. “I don’t know if you should know right -”

“Klaus is dead,” Luther says.

“....What?” Vanya says.

“Klaus,” Luther says, and he sways a bit. His hands are in fists now, but his expression is - lost. Lost and miserable and pained. “He - died, when we were thirteen. He never ran away. Dad lied to us. We read his journals. Klaus is dead. He’s always been dead.”

“He killed himself, Luther,” Diego says harshly, and then he finally loses his battle against tears. “He k-killed himself, and Dad didn’t fucking care, and none of us ever knew. And now Five is dead too, and they’re asking us what we want to do with _the body._ ”

Vanya should be feeling something.

She should be feeling something, she knows. What kind of sister is she, that she can hear about her brother’s suicide, the one that was hidden from her for _seventeen years,_ and not feel something? Especially when Five’s death felt like being ripped in two?

She really is a horrible person.

“I’m sorry,” she says. It’s all she can say.

“What?” Allison says, looking at her through tears.

“I’m sorry,” Vanya repeats. If they didn’t understand the first time, that’s okay. Vanya has practice in apologizing. She’s spent her whole life doing it, and sometimes she resented that, but even spending the _rest_ of her life apologizing will never make up for what she’s done.

“Why are you apologizing, Vanya?” Luther says.

“....It’s my fault,” Vanya says. “It’s my fault Five died. He fought them for _me,_ he died because I couldn’t - I couldn’t save myself, I’m sorry, they read my book and they knew about him and they took me and I’m _sorry,_ I’m sorry, I - I -”

Vanya realizes that she is crying at the same time Allison bends over to wrap her in a hug.

“No,” Allison says thickly. “No, Vanya, it’s not your fault, it’s not, I promise it’s not, you have _nothing_ to apologize for, nothing at all.”

“I couldn’t do anything,” Vanya tries to explain through her tears, the sobs that keep bubbling up. “I couldn’t help him, I couldn’t get free, I’m just _ordinary,_ I’m stupid and small and ordinary and I couldn’t _do_ anything and he _died_ and it’s _my fault._ ”

Allison tries to say something, but she’s crying too hard. She shakes her head instead, but Vanya knows better. It’s her fault, it will always be her fault.

A weight settles on her shoulder. Vanya flinches and looks up. Through her tears, she can see Luther, and the weight is his hand. All he’d have to do is squeeze slightly, and he could snap her collarbone like a twig.

“It’s not your fault, Vanya,” Luther says, looking devastated. “And - you aren’t - you aren’t ordinary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: major character death, survivor's guilt, obliquely-described aftermath of torture.
> 
> And just to clarify, the siblings don't know about Klaus' reanimation, just his death. So that's fun.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings at end.

The morning light filters into the room when Vanya opens her eyes, illuminating the curtains and making the entire room seem softer, gentler.

For a moment, Vanya feels confused. This isn’t her room - in fact, this room isn’t familiar at all. It’s clearly luxurious, but entirely bare of personal effects, impersonal as a hotel room.

A _hotel -_

Oh.

Oh.

The events of yesterday return to her, fresh and vivid as if she was reliving them all over again. Her kidnapping and torture, Five’s rescue, Five’s _death,_ her hospitalization, her siblings coming to see her, and the double revelation of Klaus’ death and her powers.

She remembers that she didn’t believe them, at first. About her powers, not about Klaus. Horrible as it was, she could absolutely believe Dad covered up Klaus’ death. It was only when she realized that if Dad could lie to them about their brother’s entire death, then of course he could lie about her entire life.

It still doesn’t feel real. But then, the entire foundation of her reality has been ripped out from under her. It would make sense that nothing feels real anymore.

Vanya doesn’t know how long she spends staring at the wall. She got released from the hospital last night at the insistence of her siblings, who were adamant that she could be protected easier at the Academy. Since she _would_ have never been kidnapped if she had someone watching over her in the first place, she went along with it.

She doubts that any more assassins are going to come, though. They got what they wanted.

A door click brings Vanya out of her thoughts. She looks over as Allison enters the room.

“Hey,” Allison says. She tries to smile, and only partly succeeds. “How are you?”

Vanya isn’t actually sure she’s capable of responding until she says, “Okay.”

The obvious lie hangs in the air between them. Allison swallows, and makes her way over to the bed. She perches on the edge.

“I don’t -” Allison says, then looks away. “I don’t really know what to say. Yesterday was….”

“....Yeah,” Vanya says, when her sister trails off. “It was.”

“Should we not have told you?” Allison says, looking uncertainly at Vanya. “About Klaus, and your powers? At least not right away. Would that have been better?”

Having to actually _think_ makes Vanya gain a mild headache. She blinks a few times, trying to imagine yesterday without being told about what her siblings found. It would have been - more straightforward, at least, only (‘only’) having to deal with the tragedy of Five’s death and the aftereffects of her torture. But imagining today, tomorrow, next week, next month….

“....No,” she says dully. “I don’t think so. I would have felt like you kept it from me, when I finally found out. Left out again. It was - it was a lot. But I needed to know.”

“Okay. That’s good,” Allison says. She doesn’t look like it’s good. She looks devastated, actually. “At least we did something right. That’s - that’s something.” She looks at Vanya. “How are you taking it?”

“I….” Vanya trails off.

How _is_ she taking it?

Mostly, she still feels numb. The doctors all said that was likely from the shock, but it’s probably also from the _mood-suppressing medication_ Dad gave her. She made the mistake of questioning whether she should stop taking it in front of one of the nurses, and got told in no uncertain terms that if she was going to stop it had to be done _gradually_ and _carefully,_ especially since her body just went through a lot of abuse. So there’s a fresh bottle of pills on her bedside that makes Vanya’s stomach churn every time she sees it, and she took her regular dose before bed last night, even if she nearly threw up afterward.

She knows how she feels about Five’s death. It still feels like she’s been ripped in half, like there’s a part of her that is gone and won’t ever return, and in a way that’s true. She waited for him - she waited so long. She stayed up for him, night after night, making his favorite snack, leaving the lights on for him, waiting, wishing, _praying_ for him to come home. And when he did, and was distant and unreachable and brusque, at least he was _back._ At least she knew for certain that he was alive, that he wasn’t dead and gone, that she could see him whenever she wanted, even if he didn’t seem to return the sentiment.

Now he really is gone, though. Now he’s gone, the way they all feared he was after Klaus wasn’t there to reassure them anymore, and she - she doesn’t know what to do. Vanya doesn’t know if she entirely agrees with the argument that his death wasn’t her fault, but she’s calmed down enough from yesterday to realize that she wasn’t the one who shot him. She wasn’t the one who deliberately lured him to that motel room.

She’s still the one who was used to bring him there, and couldn’t help as he bled to death, though. She….has to live with that. As best she can.

Vanya doesn’t know how she feels about her - her _powers._ If she was told, before yesterday, that she has powers, it would be the most amazing moment of her life. Finally, finally, proof that she isn’t ordinary, that she can be just as special as her siblings, that she isn’t a waste of space and time. She can stop being an afterthought to everybody, she can finally get _attention,_ have everyone’s eyes on her after a lifetime of being invisible. And if she learned that Dad _deliberately suppressed_ her powers, she would be more enraged than she’s ever been in her life. Angry enough to kill, angry enough to rip the entire Academy down around their ears, angry enough to ask Five to take her back in time one week so she can kill Dad herself.

Now, though, she feels none of that.

Oh, there’s still the betrayal. Still the shock, the incredulity, the amazement at finally learning she has powers. But it all seems….unimportant. Next to everything else that’s happened, finally achieving her dream feels hollow and cheap. Her anger at Dad is a distant, vague thing. Probably she’ll feel otherwise when she’s off her meds and been brought out of her shock, but right now she can’t help but wonder why she had to find out _now,_ of all times.

And then, there’s Klaus.

Vanya remembers the last time she saw Klaus. They all do. That meeting was - it was a clusterfuck, from beginning to end. The image Allison and Luther conjured up was _horrifying,_ and that made Vanya stay quieter than she should have. The thought of Five’s body being desecrated like that (ha, joke’s on them, instead it just laid on a dirty motel room like a piece of trash) made her think suspiciously towards Klaus, because she never did like his power. It was disturbing to watch him play with _corpses_ like nothing was wrong with that, like he preferred dead things to living people. It colored her perception of him for _years,_ well after his disappearance and into adulthood. She wrote about him, about his fascination with death and necromancy and corpses, and only nostalgia led her to give him the slightest shading of sympathy.

That had consequences, though. That had consequences, ones she’s only realizing now, because he - god, he _killed_ himself. He knowingly, deliberately killed himself, and as much as she wants to believe otherwise she knows it’s because of how they treated him. Why else? He was famous, loved the world over, he had powers and prestige and attention. He wasn’t Dad’s favorite like Luther, but neither was he dismissed like Vanya. The only blot was how his siblings all treated him like he was a walking corpse himself, called his powers creepy and gross and wrong. She _remembers_ the look on his face when they accused him of potentially animating Five’s hypothetical body, the words he hurtled at them until they beat him back down, the way his face crumpled as he ran away.

As he ran away to go kill himself, pushed to the breaking point and beyond.

Vanya has thought about him a few times, since then. She wondered where he went, what he was doing, how he was managing all by himself. But she never….she never really _worried_ about him. All her siblings were always larger than life, extraordinary, hypercapable in everything they did. As she got older she realized he likely would have had trouble as a young teenager on the streets, but the thought that he might be incapable of handling it never crossed her mind. After all, he was a superhero. He was extraordinary. Of course he’d be okay. It led her to think that he was staying away on purpose, never interested in contacting her, just like the rest of her family. She was just as bitter towards him as she was to the rest of her siblings.

While, all the time, he was dead since the very day she last saw him.

“....I don’t know,” Vanya says eventually.

“I guess that’s reasonable,” Allison says. She hesitates, and then says, “Do you want to read Dad’s journal? To see the details of your powers? We didn’t really, uh, take in that part.”

“....Yeah,” Vanya says. “I want to.” Maybe it’ll make the whole thing feel at all real.

Allison nods, and slips off the bed and exits the room. She comes back a couple minutes later, and hands an embossed red journal to Vanya. It’s very familiar, of course. Vanya saw Dad writing in it on and off for her whole childhood. Were answers always so close?

“Do you want me to stay?” Allison asks.

Vanya pauses and thinks for a moment, before nodding slowly. Allison slides in next to her on the bed, and Vanya sets down the journal on her lap. Her arms still aren’t quite yet up to holding anything with substantial weight.

Which means she won’t be able to play her violin for the next couple weeks. Even through the haze of grief over much more important tragedies, that still stings a little.

Mutely, Allison opens the journaal to the page that says, at the top, _Number Seven._

Vanya stares at it. Without realizing, her fingers reach out and brush against the looping scrawl.

She feels a slight pressure on her arm, and looks over to see Allison placing a comforting hand there. It’s….grounding.

Taking a deep breath, Vanya keeps reading.

It’s - illuminating.

Apparently, she has the power to turn sound waves into bursts of energy. It’s tied to her emotions in a way that means feeling more intense emotions make her powers stronger, wilder, more prone to lashing out. When Dad deemed her too ‘uncontrollable’ and ‘dangerous,’ he put her on mood-suppressants and had Allison rumor her into forgetting the existence of her powers. And everyone else got a rumor too, of course.

“I’m sorry,” Allison says, her voice small. “I think - I think I remember it, but I didn’t understand. I was so young, I didn’t think to question it. I never put it together.”

Vanya realizes she’s shaking, very slightly. She swallows.

“I -” she says, her tongue too thick to allow her to speak properly. She swallows again and says, “Where is Klaus’ section?” Because she can’t read any more of this.

Allison hesitates, but flips the pages back to where _Number Four_ is scrawled across the top. Then she turns a few pages more, and pulls her hand back.

And there it is, in stark black ink: _Number Four is now deceased. He threw another fit, and bashed his head against the wall repeatedly. Lingered for several hours, then died. The children have been informed he ran away._

Her brother’s suicide, and the deception they lived for the past seventeen years, all summed up in four sentences. Vanya stares at it numbly.

“Did he say why?” she asks, tearing her eyes away and looking at Allison pleadingly. “Did he say - anything - about why he didn’t _tell_ us?”

“I assume because he didn’t want the public to find out and start thinking that child soldiers maybe aren’t such a great idea,” Allison says, her voice bitter. “You know how he hid it as long as he could.”

Vanya blinks dumbly at Allison. Protests rise in her throat, that they weren’t _child soldiers,_ they were _superheroes,_ there’s a world of difference -

\- except -

….Is there?

“Vanya?”

She looks at Allison, her sister oblivious to the storm going on in Vanya’s head. Allison gives her a quiet, sympathetic look, and places her hand over Vanya’s.

“I’m sorry this all got dumped on you at once,” she says. “I wish things could have been - better.”

Vanya looks back down at the journal quickly. She swallows. “Yeah,” she says, and turns the page in an effort to avoid more conversation.

There’s writing on it, which is surprising, and Vanya almost closes the book because she suddenly wonders if Dad wrote down _what he did with Klaus’ body_ and she feels nauseous at the very thought, but then her eyes catch on the top of the page and it says -

_Number Four has reanimated._

And

the

world

goes

still.

“Allison?” Vanya hears herself say, voice high and thin.

“What?” Allison says, and Vanya feels her lean against her shoulder to see.

Allison goes rigid.

 _Obviously an extension of his necromatic powers,_ the journal reads, and Vanya can almost hear Dad’s dry voice narrating the words. _He is entirely aware, and retains all his memories and functionality. He has no bodily functions whatsoever (heart, lungs, and all other organs are nonfunctional)._

_Body is in stasis, same effect as observed on prior corpses. Control is also as normal, the sole difference being that he cannot stop animating himself. Reflexive autonecromancy._

_This poses the issue of damage. Dead tissue acts as normal and does not heal. If he is damaged too much (see previous tests for threshold), he will not be capable of covering the functionality gap with necromancy._

_Number Four has been placed in containment (basement cell) to avoid such damage until further notice._

_\- Previous note of awareness may be incorrect. His mental stability has deteriorated greatly in only several months._

_\- I believe he may be a lost cause after all. He harms himself often, and does not appreciate the necessity of remaining in containment. Acts in a hostile and erratic manner._

_\- Does not display awareness of myself or Pogo. Near-complete loss of mental faculties. Probable side effect of prolonged autonecromancy._

_\- Pogo informs me that he is displaying some signs of recognition and mental acuity. Will have Pogo monitor progress._

_\- Number Four is finally capable of carrying a conversation again, although he is as difficult as ever. Still expresses hostility and erratic behavior._

_\- Number Four should be capable of performing his part when the time comes._

“What the hell is going on?” Luther bellows.

Vanya jerks her head up, her heart beating wildly, shaking like a leaf, only to realize she’s not the only thing shaking. The entire house is trembling.

Luther and Diego are standing in the doorway, both of them trying to keep their footing and hide their alarm. They aren’t managing the latter very well.

“Vanya, calm down,” Diego says.

“Allison -” Luther says.

Allison lets out a hysterical whine, pressing her hand to her mouth. She’s also shaking, staring at the journal with wide, horrified eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Luther says. His eyes fall on the journal. “God, you gave her that?”

Diego stalks forward and pulls the journal off Vanya’s lap.

“No!” Vanya says, the word jumping out of her before she can stop it.

“Look, you shouldn’t be reading about all the shit Dad did to you, not now -” Diego says.

“No,” Vanya chokes out. “No, not - it’s Klaus, look, it’s _Klaus._ ”

A frown flickers across Diego’s face, and Luther comes up behind him. They both look down at the page.

They both freeze.

Vanya - Vanya sucks in a breath, a deep breath, and the house is still trembling but maybe less than before? Maybe? She feels Allison’s warmth next to her, feels the bandages on her skin, feels the heavy dullness of her meds. She leans into that last one, because she hates it so much but she thinks she might hate this rollercoaster hurricane of emotions even more.

Then Allison’s hand is on her arm, and Vanya jumps a little, but it’s - grounding, actually. Vanya turns to look at her sister and Allison looks just as - sick, horrified, blindsided - as Vanya is, but she’s trying to comfort Vanya.

Allison is trying to comfort her.

That lets Vanya suck in more air, and let it out, and then the house is steady and still again.

It lasts for about twenty seconds.

“....He’s alive?” Luther says.

“....No,” Diego says, his face a picture of shocked, sickened horror. “No, he’s - he’s not, that’s what - that’s why - but he’s not _gone._ He’s - he used his power on himself, so he’s not _gone._ ”

“Dad locked him away,” Allison says. Her voice is uneven, and she grips Vanya’s arm tight enough to bruise. “Dad just - _locked him away._ ”

“Is he still there?”

Vanya hears the words, but it’s only when everyone looks at her that she realizes she’s the one who spoke.

“Oh my god,” Allison says faintly.

“Basement,” Diego says, looking back at the journal, his eyes widening. “He’s - he’s in the basement? Where? Where is there a - fucking _cell_ in the basement?”

“There isn’t,” Luther says. “I should know, I’ve been down there a thousand times, I know the whole place except for -” he breaks off.

“Except for where?” Allison says, straightening.

“....There’s a door,” Luther says slowly. “There’s a door, right - right off Pogo’s old room.”

Silence falls.

“....Pogo,” Vanya says, staring at the journal, held in Diego’s hands. “Pogo knew. He - he _knew._ This whole time.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Diego’s voice shakes. _“I’m going to **kill him.”**_

“Is that where he’s been?” Luther says. “We haven’t been able to find him anywhere, these past couple days. Has he - has he been visiting Klaus?”

“We need to go down there,” Allison says, and suddenly she’s bursting into movement. “We need to _get down there._ ”

None of them disagree with her, and within a minute Vanya is being carried by Luther as they hurry down the stairs to the basement. Luther knocks the lights on more by accident than design, and it lights up the place. Vanya has always dreaded the basement, for reasons she can’t explain, and her heart beats faster as they approach the room that used to belong to Pogo back when he was young enough that stairs weren’t as much of an obstacle.

But she can’t freeze up now. She can’t. So she stays quiet as they file into the room, shrinks back against Luther even as he carries her forward and looks over at the door, which is -

open.

They all pause.

“...Is Pogo in there right now?” Vanya ventures.

“Must be,” Luther says, staring.

They all stay still for a moment, staring at the door. For some reason, that half-open door seems sinister, filling Vanya with a nameless dread. There’s something - _wrong_ about it, something that slides across her skin like an icy razor. Her hindbrain screams at her that she mustn’t go through that door, she _can’t._ She finds herself shaking, and she can tell from Luther’s rapid heartbeat that he feels the same way.

Then Diego hisses in frustration and stalks forward, breaking the spell. He pushes it open, causing them all to break out of their own paralysis, and they rush to follow him. Vanya’s pleas die in her throat.

There’s another room behind the door, one without any furniture or adornments and only a few pipes on the wall. To the side, there’s an elevator, also with its door open.

They all stare at it.

“It’s deeper down?” Allison says, her expression uneasy.

“God,” Diego says, sucking in a shaky breath. “This is fucked up.”

Slowly, they approach the elevator, and Vanya shrinks back against Luther’s chest. He squeezes her, briefly, sending her a reassuring glance, but it doesn’t stop her heartbeat from roaring in her ears as they step inside.

Diego closes the elevator doors, and Vanya stops breathing.

She doesn’t like elevators. She doesn’t like elevators, or closets, or small spaces of any kind, and she has to burrow her face into Luther’s chest to avoid looking anywhere, but she still feels the walls looming above her. closing in. Luther holds her close and rubs circles on her back, but it doesn’t help very much. Her breathing stutters, then picks up, going in rapid, shallow breaths as if it’s trying to compete with her heartbeat.

Her siblings are doing something, and there’s the faint sensation of movement, but Vanya is entirely preoccupied with trying not to have a panic attack. Her brain keeps screaming, _screaming_ at her to get out, get away, get somewhere _safe_ she’s not _safe,_ and it’s only her brother’s solid warmth that keeps her tethered to sanity.

Then Luther is moving, and he says, “Vanya, we’re out of the elevator,” and Vanya looks up.

Her first thought is that this is hardly better, because now they’re in a long concrete hallway that Vanya can’t help but compare to a coffin. The elevator is yawning open behind them, and she quickly looks away, around the hallway. There’s a set of double doors at the end, and one is, like the upstairs door, half-open.

“Pogo’s definitely down here,” Diego says lowly, staring at the door. He grips one of his knives tightly. “I’m going to kill him. Don’t try to stop me.”

Frankly, Vanya doesn’t know if she even wants to stop him, but either way she can’t bring herself to express words right now. It’s taking all her strength to stop herself from passing out.

She can practically feel Luther’s unsease radiating off of him, but he doesn’t try to protest either. He can probably tell it would fall on deaf ears. It’s not even clear if Allison heard Diego, her eyes fixed on the door and her face frozen.

Diego starts off down the hallway, and they all follow him.

Vanya stares at the doors as they get closer. Her brain is screeching in _panic panic PANIC_ now, over and over, but her limbs seem incapable of moving. It’s like she’s paralyzed, completely helpless as she’s carried forward to her doom.

When they’re just a couple dozen feet from the door, Luther stops.

Diego and Allison keep going for a couple steps, before the notice and stop as well. They look back, mildly confused.

Slowly, Luther turns, and looks back towards where the elevator is.

“Everything alright, big guy?” Diego says.

“I….” Luther says. Vanya inches her chin upward to see he’s wearing a puzzled frown on his face. “I just - realized something.”

“Realized what?” Allison says.

“The elevator was up there, at the top,” Luther says slowly. “It was waiting at the _top._ If - if Pogo is down here, then how did it….”

His voice dies, and all of them are frozen. The air is perfectly still.

Slowly, agonizingly, they all turn to face the door.

It waits there, patiently, hung half-open. Vanya can’t see what’s behind it, from where she is, and in a brilliant burst of clarity she realizes she does not want to. She _does not want_ to know what is behind that awful, awful door. She wants to slip out of Luther’s arms, run back up this coffin of a hallway, take the elevator back upstairs, race out of the Academy and never, ever return. She wants to drag her siblings with her so they don’t get trapped behind that door, behind the endless overwhelming _silence_ that drowns every scream and plea and thought. She wants to level this building to the bedrock, collapse this place in on itself, set fire to the ashes, and make sure it is never rebuilt, erased from memory.

Luther takes a step forward.

Vanya tries to tell him no. _No,_ don’t get closer, don’t touch it, run away and don’t ever come back. But her voice refuses to work, her arms refuse to move, and she can only watch as the door looms larger and larger as Luther takes slow, deliberate steps towards it.

Diego and Allison follow, and they cautiously approach the door, but if they were really being cautious they wouldn’t, they would get away from it, they would _run._ But they don’t do that, they just keep getting closer and closer until -

“Oh god,” Allison whispers, coming to a dead stop. Her face goes pale. “Do you smell that?”

Rot. It’s rot, the cloying smell of rotting meat, and since there’s no breeze down here it isn’t wafting out of the door but pooled right behind it. The smell hits all of a sudden, as if they’ve crossed an invisible line.

“Jesus fuck,” Diego says, his face like curdled milk, and before anyone can stop him he’s lifted up his arm to his nose and reached forward to grasp the door handle and -

“Diego, _wait -_ ”

\- and -

Pogo.

It’s Pogo. Of course it’s Pogo.

The body lays in front of an enormous metal wall, the only thing indicating there might be something behind it being an oversized metal door with a narrow window in it. The body is right in front of the door, which follows the trend of being partially open. The room is otherwise bare, except for a small box welded to the wall with a few switches on it.

Pogo has clearly been dead for several days. The smell is pervasive, overpowering, and some parts of him have already fully decomposed. At least one of his limbs is at an awkward, impossible angle.

“Oh my god,” Luther whispers.

Vanya stares at the door.

“It’s open,” she hears someone say, and it takes her several seconds to realize it was her who said that. “The door. It’s open.”

“Oh my god,” Allison says, standing statue-still, face bloodless. “He’s out. He really got out. That was - he was -”

“He was _real,_ ” Diego breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: discussion of death & suicide & gaslighting & child soldiers, mention of insanity by way of solitary confinement, decomposition.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: referenced homophobia

Five blinks.

His first thought is that he can’t remember how he got here.

His second thought is that he doesn’t even know where ‘here’ is.

His _third_ thought is that wait, wasn’t he in that stupid child body just a while ago?

He blinks again, and looks down at himself in startlement. Yes, he’s back in his adult body. He has callouses, facial hair, scar tissue - everything that got wiped away when he went back in time. There’s an enormous swell of _relief_ inside his chest, because he’s been trying to push away the dysphoria while he works to prevent the apocalypse but _god,_ it feels good to have his own skin back again. Plus, he’s out of that fucking Academy uniform, and instead wearing his favored outfit from the apocalypse. Comfortable, durable, and rather fetching, at least according to Delores. Five relaxes, breathing out in a way he hasn’t been able to do in days.

Then, however, he returns to the first two points, and the lack of answer makes a spark of panic spring to life inside his chest.

Five forces himself to stay calm. He’s standing on - a street. Just a random street. There are cars going down the road, and people walking on the sidewalk, and the sun is shining overhead and everything is - fine. Everything is clearly fine. The apocalypse hasn’t happened yet, he clearly hasn’t been caught by the Commission - he just needs to figure out what the fuck is going on and why he can’t remember what led him to be standing here in his adult body.

Okay. First order of business: is he, in fact, in his own city? Normal people probably wouldn’t think to check that, but Five _is_ a teleporter. Hopping cities would take several jumps, and he’d be tired afterwards, but it’s entirely doable.

However, inspection of his surroundings reveals a newspaper box with the local paper. That’s good, then.

Then he notices the _date_ on the newspaper.

“What the _fuck!_ ” Five says.

It’s one day before the apocalypse. _One day._

Five scrambles to remember the last date he remembers. Hell, the last _thing_ he remembers, _period._ He - he had at least a couple days, didn’t he? He was waiting on someone coming for the eye, staking out MeriTech. He remembers that there was that storm, and he was angry because it would interfere with visibility, and then -

Then -

Fuck, what _happened?_ As far as he can recall, that was over a day ago!

He hisses to himself in frustration. What the everloving _fuck_ happened to make him lose a day of time and revert back to his adult form? By the looks of the position of the sun, it’s mid-to-late afternoon. He has _maybe_ a day and a half before the world ends, likely less.

Looking around again, Five sighs to himself. He goes up to a woman waiting for the crosswalk light to turn green. “Do you have the time?” he asks brusquely.

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look at him. The crosswalk light turns green, and she steps off the corner without a single indication she heard him.

For fuck’s sake. Some people.

Five might walk in some manner resembling ‘stomping’ as he goes up to another person. “Do you have the time?” he says, unable to keep the annoyance from his tone.

The man doesn’t respond.

“Oh, for -” Five reaches out. “Hey, I asked you -”

His hand goes through the man’s arm.

His hand -

\- goes _through_ -

Five freezes.

He stares.

“....What?” he says. His voice sounds very small, all of a sudden.

The man doesn’t seem to hear him. He suddenly turns, and walks _through_ Five. The sensation is almost, but not quite, like teleporting. Five staggers.

He whirls around, staring after the man with wide eyes.

“What?” Five says again.

Then, for the first time, he realizes his body doesn’t feel _exactly_ like it did before he got deaged. All the aches and pains that were present are gone now. He doesn’t have to subtly keep three-fourths of his weight on his left leg anymore. His muscles are tense as usual, but there’s no strain present from keeping them that way for the past forty-five years. It’s like he’s combined his preferred actual appearance with the benefits of a young body.

Except -

….He doesn’t _have_ a body anymore, does he?

He remembers -

\- going to Vanya’s apartment, finding her gone, _knowing_ who’s responsible -

\- finding the motel, finding their room, jumping in -

\- seeing Vanya, riding the rage that inspired, the fight -

\- getting shot. Twice. And then….

Dying.

He died.

He’s _dead._

Oh, god, he’s _dead._

Five staggers back again, more heavily this time, and has to sit down in the middle of the sidewalk. His head is spinning. No, the world is spinning. The world is spinning, and soon it will be dead, gone, nothing but ash. Everyone will die, his _family_ will die.

He failed.

Forty-five years, and he _failed._

Someone walks through him, and Five twitches. The sensation is just different enough from teleporting to be deep in the uncanny valley. Another person intersects him, and the fleeting thought that he should maybe move occurs to him.

He doesn’t, though. Why should he? It’s not important. Nothing is important anymore. Everyone around him will be dead tomorrow, then he won’t have to feel them intersecting him ever again, for the rest of forever. He’ll just - wander the world all over again, although this time he won’t have to scavenge and scrounge for food because at least ghosts don’t have to eat.

God. he’s a ghost now. An actual fucking _ghost._ He’s always known ghosts exist, thanks to Klaus, but it was always more - abstract knowledge. It never impacted any part of his life, so it was like the fact that, statistically speaking, there’s very likely to be life on other planets. Academically interesting, if he ever turned to that field of study, but it never had any practical relevance and Five has always been a very practical person.

Well. Joke’s on him. Maybe if Five knew more about ghosts, if he pumped Klaus for more information when they were kids, he might be capable of - _doing_ something, bending the rules somehow to contact the living, contact his siblings and warn them -

Five’s thoughts screech to a halt.

Because. Because - Klaus. Klaus can contact the dead. Klaus can _hear_ the dead. Klaus can - he would be able to -

That is, if Klaus is still alive.

Another person passes through Five, but he barely pays it any attention. His mind scrambles over the plan - ha, right, it’s not a plan, it’s a desperate hope, but Five needs to _stay calm_ and having something he can call a plan will let him do that - and looks at how he might be able to carry it out.

Everything hinges on Klaus, now. If he’s - if Diego is right, about Klaus’ ultimate fate, then the world is doomed. Utterly screwed. Five cannot affect anything as a ghost, he can’t talk to people or enact change, and while he can _investigate_ even better than when he was alive he can’t actually _act_ on anything he finds. All he can do, without Klaus, is be a useless spectator, gain a front-row seat to the apocalypse.

So Five has to act as though Klaus is still alive. As if he still has a chance - a slim, wild chance, but a chance nonetheless. He can’t accept anything else.

Okay. First things first. He has to find Klaus. That’s -

That’s going to be difficult. Five has no idea if Klaus is even in the _country,_ much less the city. He has precisely zero information, whether from his memories or Vanya’s book, about where Klaus went or what he did after running away. As Five knows from experience, seventeen years is a long fucking time.

Five grits his teeth as another person passes through him. He pulls himself to his feet and moves off the center of the sidewalk. Part of him is glad that no one was capable of seeing his breakdown there, but honestly if he were capable of being seen things would be so much easier.

God. Fuck. Five wastes several seconds wallowing in pain over the fact that Vanya didn’t believe him when he told her about the apocalypse. This is why he needed to tell someone - after forty years living in a world that seemed specifically trying to kill him at every turn, Five _knows_ he’s not invincible. He’s very, very good, but he’s not thirteen anymore, convinced he’s immortal and unassailable. He _knew_ he might die trying to prevent the apocalypse, that this exact fucking situation might come to pass, and he needed someone else to be aware of the cataclysm bearing down on all of them. Because if Five can’t find Klaus, or if Klaus really is dead, then -

No. No. Don’t think about it. He can’t think about it.

Five pulls himself together, and concentrates. Okay. Finding Klaus. How can he best do that?

He starts walking down the street, mind churning furiously. Just because none of his siblings ever heard from Klaus doesn’t mean there aren’t records of him somewhere, Five rationalizes. The Umbrella Academy was world-famous, and their faces were plastered everywhere. He must have been recognized at some point, and even if he managed to hide his face there’s also his tattoo. Managing to go perfectly undetected for seventeen years probably isn’t what happened.

So - is there an archive, somewhere? People are weird about celebrities, there probably is at least one person out there who’s spent years looking for Klaus, who’s compiled evidence and sightings and so forth. They may even have a decent guess of where he is now. And finding a superfan sounds much more doable than finding Klaus flat-out.

The question, however, is whether Five can find that hypothetical superfan, use their hypothetical work to track down Klaus, convince Klaus that the apocalypse really is coming, convince him to help prevent it, and then actually do that. All in the next thirty hours or so.

Five feels panic bubble up in his chest, but he pushes it down. He keeps walking. Calm. Calm. The odds are really, really against him here, but panicking will just wipe them out entirely. He needs to stay _calm._

He runs over several other strategies in his mind over the next several minutes, but being unable to interact with the world rather _severely_ limits his options. Five bites his lip as he comes to a stop, and lets out a shaky huff of breath through his nose. Long shot that it is, he has to go with the superfan plot. He can’t - he can’t _think_ of anything else.

Scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands, Five breathes in, and breathes out. Shakily, the first few times, but he can tell he’s not actually taking in any air so it’s not the priority it once was. Which means he needs to stop wasting valuable time and start _looking._

Five turns to go, and -

\- there’s a _tug_ inside his chest.

He stops, and looks down at himself in bemusement. The sensation felt - weird. Like something directly reaching inside of him and brushing up against his internal organs. Except he doesn’t have internal organs anymore, so more like - his soul? He feels weird using that word, but it _is_ probably the best description for his state of existence right now.

He takes another step, and there’s that _tug_ again. This time, he notices it’s coming from a direction, the opposite way he’s facing.

Turning back around, Five takes a small step in the direction of the tug. There isn’t the sensation again, but it feels - easier. Like walking down an incline.

Dubiously, Five looks at the apartment building in front of him, where the tug seems to be centered on. Now that he thinks about it, when he was walking, he seemed to be pulled in this direction.

Five makes a circuit around the building, and yes, the pull is definitely centered on here. He frowns at it.

“I,” he announces, “Am _not_ a fan of this.”

The building has no response to this. Five grits his teeth, and debates with himself. On one hand, he needs to be getting started with his search. On another hand, it’s going to be annoying trying to ignore this stupid tugging the whole time. He might as well find out what kind of ghost magnet is doing this to him.

Huffily, Five phases through the door. The place is nice enough, he supposes, although anywhere with four intact walls is pretty much a palace to him. The soul-pull or whatever it is seems to be very precisely located, so he takes a few stairs and goes down a couple hallways before he finds himself outside a certain door.

He glares at it. “This better be worth my time,” Five grumbles, and phases through.

There are three people inside, is the first thing Five notices. An older man, and two older and younger teenagers. The younger one is missing an arm, and the older one looks Asian. They’re all mostly facing away from Five, looking at something on a shelf, and Five has to consciously remind himself that he doesn’t have to conceal his presence, because he’s a ghost now. The apartment is - well, Five doesn’t know how to judge apartment decorations, but it at least doesn’t make him want to cover his eyes in disgust. It’s a normal apartment, he guesses.

The pull is silent. Five frowns. “Great, can I leave now?” he mutters.

The two teenagers startle, and turn to him.

And one is -

He’s -

“Klaus?” the old man says. “Something wrong?”

The older teen narrows his eyes at Five, and unsubtly steps between him and -

“Ghost,” mumbles Klaus.

Klaus. It’s Klaus. It’s _Klaus,_ but - but he’s thirteen, he’s thirteen years old, he looks the same age as that portrait over the mantel and the same as in Five’s blurry memories, he’s the same age but - _but -_

“Hey,” the older teen says, narrowing his eyes. “Move along.”

“Oh,” the old man says, not paying the older teen nor Five any attention. Instead he steps closer to Klaus and wraps his arms around him. Klaus melts into the touch. The old man pats his back. “I’m sorry, Klaus. What are they doing?”

“Just staring,” Klaus says.

The scene doesn’t make sense. Five’s mind tries to understand, and he - he _can’t,_ what is going on, what the _fuck,_ Klaus is - Klaus looks like a fucking zombie, and his arm and one of his _eyes_ are gone, and he still looks thirteen only _dead,_ and -

The older teen steps closer to Five, giving an actually somewhat impressive glare. “You aren’t listening,” he says flatly. “I’m going to need you to leave my brother alone _now._ ”

…..brother?

“....Ben?” Five whispers.

The teen - ghost - _Ben,_ oh god, it’s _Ben_ \- jerks back in surprise, his eyes widening a bit, and Klaus lifts his head.

Ben recovers quickly, though, and gives him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, that’s me. And you are? Wait, no, don’t bother, just leave already.”

“I -” Five’s tongue seems to be broken, somehow, and it takes him a second to get it working again. “No, I’m Five, Ben, I’m Five.”

Ben blinks. “....No, you aren’t.”

“I am,” Five says, suddenly seized by terror. “No, I am, Ben, I promise I am, I time-travelled and it’s been seventeen years for you but it’s been forty-five for me, but what - what happened, why is Klaus like - that? What _happened?_ ”

Ben takes a step back, and shock flits over his face for a second. “What? I - wait, no, Five is - he looks thirteen, you’re not -”

“Ben?” Klaus says, his eyes wide. He’s standing very still save for his one eye, darting between Ben and Five. The old man begins stroking his patchy hair, and looks around the room worriedly, his eyes passing over Five and Ben with no interruption.

“I was thirteen, but yesterday there was a shootout, and -” Five stops himself. “But this is really what I look like, I’m fifty-eight. And I really am your brother.”

Five pushes back his sleeve to reveal his tattoo, the one he knows is a perfect match to the ones on Klaus and Ben’s wrists, even Klaus’ lone one.

They

both

freeze.

“No,” Klaus says, his eye wide, and if he had any blood left in his face it would probably flee. _“No.”_

“Oh god,” Ben says, staring. “God - _fuck!_ You’re _dead!_ You - you _fucking moron!_ ”

“It’s not like I wanted this to happen!” Five snaps. “And could _someone_ please tell me why the _fuck_ Klaus looks like that!?”

Klaus makes a keening, high-pitched noise, and hides his face in the old man’s chest. The man looks alarmed, and starts patting Klaus’ back as he maneuvers them both towards the couch.

“Why the hell do you think?” Ben snipes, crossing his arms. He would probably come off as more annoyed if he didn’t look deeply shaken. “Klaus never ran away, he died when he was thirteen. Except his necromancy automatically works on himself, and he’s been a zombie ever since.”

Five -

Five stares.

“....Oh,” he says faintly. Then, “I think I’m going to freak out now.”

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

“Oh,” Dave says. “Well, shit. That’s - god, Klaus, I’m so sorry.”

Klaus just burrows deeper into his chest, which is a fair response. Dave makes sure he doesn’t let up on the hug one bit as he starts rubbing circles on Klaus’ back.

Because Klaus definitely needs the comfort. He just learned one of his siblings _died,_ via said sibling showing up as a ghost only he can see and can’t actually get rid of if he wants to. And Dave has learned that Klaus’ relationships with his family besides Ben are - _fraught,_ to say the least.

At least Ben took Five aside to explain things, so Five won’t upset Klaus any more than he already has. Dave knows he should probably be going a little easier on someone who just died, but he can’t help the rise of his protective instincts whenever Klaus looks the least bit upset.

It’s funny, really. Dave never really thought about having a child. Sure, when he was younger, he wondered a few times if he could ever settle down, have that white picket fence life. But in the time Dave grew up in, having that meant having a _wife,_ no exceptions. Kids weren’t ever really an option for him unless he was willing to pretend for the rest of his life, and, well. Dave never was all that good at pretending.

So Dave never thought about kids - never _allowed_ himself to think about it. He contented himself with his nieces and nephews, and it was alright. He was happy, he really was. He dated men sometimes, even loved a few of them, but that never lasted forever, and until two days ago Dave had become used to the knowledge that he wouldn’t ever have that white picket fence life. He still had a comfortable life, a good life, and that was enough.

Then Klaus came, and turned everything upside-down. It’s only been two days since Dave found him cowering in that alley, but he can honestly say that those two days have been more fulfilling that the past two _years._

Klaus is a sweet child. God, he’s unbearably sweet, which is a downright miracle as far as Dave is concerned. Dave has known grown men who haven’t been through a fraction of the sheer hell Klaus has been through who don’t have a single good bone in their body, mock and reject any form of kindness they see, but Klaus isn’t like that at all. He just wants to be held, to know that someone cares for him, but he’ll uncomplainingly give that up in a heartbeat if someone is upset over his existence. The morning after Dave brought Klaus home, he spent almost twenty minutes reassuring Klaus that he actually _wanted_ to hug the kid again.

Dave has spent the majority of the last two days hugging Klaus, if he’s being honest. Sometimes they work on some of Dave’s puzzle books, sometimes they talk, sometimes they talk with Ben (it’s a bit awkward with Klaus having to relay all of Ben’s replies to Dave, but only a bit. Ben is a pretty good conversationalist, and just a pretty good kid overall. Plus, Dave is proud to say that he has Ben’s approval and thanks for the way he’s taking care of Klaus), sometimes they exchange stories, sometimes they just doze on the couch (or Dave does, anyways, and Klaus apparently just enjoys luxuriating in the physical contact). Dave thought he’d just heat up a few quick meals for himself until Klaus is less of a koala, but Klaus actually expressed interest in cooking, so Dave made a few simple things from scratch and let Klaus help out some. The kid was so earnest about it, the memory makes Dave smile every time he remembers.

He knows more about Klaus’ family situation, now, and about his living conditions for the past seventeen years, and some about his life before that. And frankly, Dave kind of wants to punch everyone in that house in the face, with the possible exception of Klaus’ mother.

But. The important thing here is Klaus. And Klaus wouldn’t be comforted by Dave harming his family. He’d be pretty upset by that, to be honest. And Klaus has been through far too many upsetting things in his life - existence? - and deserves to never be upset again. Dave - doesn’t really think he can manage _that,_ not realistically, but damned if he’s not going to try.

Such as, for example, giving Klaus the maximum amount of hug that is physically possible when it turns out his brother has died and decided to pay him a visit.

Again, Dave really doesn’t want to rag on someone who literally just _died._ But the timing of it is - not ideal. Klaus has only been out of the bunker for a few _days._ He has _mountains_ of trauma still yet to be addressed, and Dave knows better than to assume he’s opened up about _everything._

But Dave is willing to wait, and support Klaus in whatever way he needs. Dave never let himself think about having kids, but….Dave might have already caught himself thinking of Klaus in terms that are at least parallel to the concept. He cares about Klaus, and wants to see him happy and confident and safe and - well, all that stuff. _Someone_ has to, and maybe between Dave and Ben they can eventually make Klaus understand that.

Klaus makes a small noise, and turns his head slightly. His eyes focus on the door to Dave’s bedroom, where as Dave understands it Ben pulled Five into for explanations.

“They back now?” Dave says.

Klaus nods. He waits a few seconds, then says solemnly, “Five is still upset, but Ben says it’s not because I’m dead.” Another pause. “Not because I _look_ dead. He’s upset that I’m dead.”

 _He damned well better be,_ Dave doesn’t say, but he thinks it pretty loudly.

“How did you die?” Klaus says, presumably to Five. Then, “Oh. Did it hurt?....Okay. That’s good. Why did you get shot?”

Dave raises an eyebrow, but refrains from asking if Five was perhaps doing more Umbrella Academy work. Eighty years has taught him to keep his mouth shut every once in a while.

Klaus stiffens all of a sudden, and alarm flashes across his face. “Is she okay?....Oh, good. Why was Vanya kidnapped, though?”

“Your sister was kidnapped?” Dave says in alarm.

“Five says so,” Klaus says. “That’s how he got shot. He rescued her. Like in a story. Except he died, so it’s a sad story, but she’s okay, so it’s not too sad….Well, it’d be a lot sadder if she died, duh.”

“It would,” Dave agrees. “I’m glad she’s okay, and I’m sorry you died, Five.”

“You didn’t answer, though,” Klaus says. “Why did Vanya get kidnapped?”

Honestly, Dave is pretty curious about that himself. Worried, too. From the sound of it, this family already has far more than its share of horrible things that have happened.

Klaus blinks, and Dave thinks he might look faintly disapproving. “Oh,” he says. “That was really dumb of you.”

Dave can practically hear Ben’s snort of laughter. He’s fairly sure he has enough of a grasp on Ben’s personality to know it happened.

If Five responds, Klaus doesn’t have time to relay it before there’s a knock on Dave’s door.

Klaus goes still, and Dave frowns a bit before he remembers. “Oh! I bet I know who that is. Klaus, do you mind going into my room for a moment? You can talk to your brother now that things are calmed down a bit.”

Klaus hesitates for a second, but Dave squeezes him briefly and he nods reluctantly. He peels himself away from Dave and silently treads into Dave’s room. Dave clambers off the couch and stretches a bit before going over to the door.

Opening it reveals exactly who Dave thought it would be. He smiles.

“Lance, how are you?” Dave says genially.

“Just got off from work,” Lance says, shifting on his feet. Indeed, he’s still wearing his white doctor’s coat. “I, ah, I have that prosthetic you wanted.”

“Goodness,” Dave says, shaking his head. “You said you could do it fast, but I was expecting longer.”

“Yes, well,” Lance tries to smile, but it seems like more of a grimace. Dave knows Lance never particularly liked him - he was always subtle about it, but Dave knows a bigot when he sees one. But he treats Dave’s niece well, and that’s all an uncle can really ask for. “Here it is.”

He all but shoves a small box at Dave, and Dave takes it with a pleased hum.

“Oh, great,” Dave says. “That’s just great, Lance. How much do I owe you?”

“Free of charge,” Lance says.

Dave pauses in surprise. He peers at his nephew-in-law. “What, really? I thought I’d have to pay for it.”

“Ah, yeah,” Lance says, grimacing again. “I considered it, you know, since we never really - got along. But I’ve reconsidered, and I think you should really have that eye. Call it a - peace offering.”

“....Well,” Dave says, recovering. One other benefit from semi-adopting a superpowered undead child you found in an alleyway - nothing else can really surprise you very much. “That’s great to hear, Lance. Thank you.”

“Uh-huh,” Lance says. “Look, I should probably get back home to Sheila, so -”

“Oh, don’t let me keep you,” Dave says in relief, because he doesn’t want to be rude, but Klaus doesn’t deserve to be cooped up in Dave’s bedroom for the next hour or so. Klaus doesn’t deserve to be cooped up _anywhere,_ which is why Dave called Lance in the first place. “You take care, Lance.”

“Mm,” Lance says, already turning and marching away.

Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day. But Dave closes the door, feeling much happier than before. He might actually progress to being on friendly terms with his nephew-in-law in the near future, how about that. He thought for sure Lance would make him pay more than market price, or ask that Dave lessen contact with his niece, or something like that. Now Dave feels bad for suspecting such things.

He turns back to face his bedroom door, cradling the box in his hands. “Klaus?” he says. “You can come out now.”

A few seconds later, Klaus comes out of the bedroom, looking to the side. Talking to his brothers, probably. But then he sees the box in Dave’s hands and tilts his head. “What’s that?”

“It’s a gift,” Dave says, feeling extraordinarily pleased with himself. “For you.”

Klaus’ one eye widens slightly. “For me?”

“Yes,” Dave says. “Would you like to open it?”

Klaus nods, and they relocate to the couch. Klaus glances to the side. “Five is wondering why you got me a present.”

“Let me guess, he’s suspicious of me?” Dave says, resettling himself and letting his bones relax.

“- He says yes,” Klaus gives a small glare at where Five is apparently standing. “That’s dumb, Five. Dave is nice and he hugs me. He cares about me. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I wouldn’t,” Dave confirms soberly. “Absolutely not. But it’s understandable that he’s worried, Klaus. There are people who would pretend to be nice, get you to let your guard down, and then they’d use that opening to hurt you. Five doesn’t know which kind of person I am, so he’s being cautious.”

Klaus looks a little confused, but he shakes his head. “What’s my present?” he asks, looking at the box.

“Open it and see,” Dave says, handing it over.

It becomes abundantly clear that Klaus may have actually never opened a box before, and certainly not with one arm. Dave has to help out a bit, but soon enough Klaus is peering into the box, and then lifting out the prosthetic eyeball. He looks at it with interest and a bit of confusion.

“A fake eye?” he says, looking at Dave.

“Yes,” Dave says, feeling a little nervous. He hurries to explain. “See, I was thinking you shouldn’t have to stay in my little apartment all the time. You’ve had enough of being locked up in places. So I called up one of my nieces as well, and she’s going to be dropping off a makeup kit tomorrow, and my nephew-in-law dropped this off, and I was thinking we could see if we can make you up to look like a living boy, and then you can go outside without anyone noticing you’re not. That is, if you want to, of course.”

Dave holds his breath, because - well, he doesn’t know if Klaus _will_ want to. The last time he went outside was fairly traumatic, after all. And seventeen years confined to a small bare cell, with thirteen years before _that_ confined to indoors with only rigidly controlled access to the outside world? It would be entirely understandable if Klaus can’t even fully understand the _option_ of going outside just because he wants to.

Klaus stares at Dave for a full ten seconds. Dave does _not_ fidget.

And then -

Klaus _throws_ himself across the small space between them, flinging his arm around Dave in a rib-crushing hug. Dave startles, before his brain catches up with him and he hugs Klaus back.

“Yes,” Klaus says, and his voice is wavering. “Yes, please. I want to.”

“Oh,” Dave says, and relaxes. “Oh, good. I’m glad.”

Klaus is trembling slightly, in that way Dave has learned means he’d be crying if he could. He strokes Klaus’ hair, the same way Dave’s own mother did for him when he was young. Klaus nuzzles deeper into Dave’s chest, but glances to the side.

“Ben says thank you, so much,” Klaus says. “Five isn’t saying anything.” He pauses. “And I’m saying thank you too.”

“You’re entirely welcome, Klaus,” Dave says. He smiles, and there’s a warm glow inside his chest that’s been there on and off for the past two days. Dave is really starting to like that glow.

Then Klaus flinches slightly. He looks over to the side with a look of faint bemusement.

“Five just said ‘what the fuck,’” Klaus says. He wrinkles his nose. “It was loud.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, many of you thought Klaus would get the prosthetic, and turns out you were right! You know, interestingly enough, I actually didn't decide that until I was about halfway done with writing the story. This whole fic was sort of a write-as-you-go endeavor.
> 
> (Off-topic: the trailer is out! But I have not seen it, nor am I going to. I want to be totally surprised by s2. Please don't spoil anything for me. Thank you!)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings at the end.

It’s been just under a day since Five arrived, and Ben now has _several_ reasons to wish his brother never died. Most saliently, he’s just very deeply annoying. Ben has forgotten this in the years he’s been away, but now Five is reminding him with every sentence he’s speaking.

It’s probably uncharitable to think that way. Ben freely admits that. But he’s never been a saint, just a boy perpetually steeped the contents of one horror movie or another. So the fact that Five’s own personal genre is apparently ‘apocalyptic’ is - hard to swallow.

“So let me get this straight,” Ben says, staring at his brother. “You’re saying that Klaus is going to….end the world.”

“I believe so,” Five says through gritted teeth.

“Because he has a prosthetic eye,” Ben says.

“No, because he has _that_ prosthetic eye,” Five snaps, pointing towards the door. The gesture is slightly lost, considering the door is closed, but the intention is clear enough. Dave and Klaus are on the other side, and the last time Ben stuck his head out they were having a grand old time attempting to knit. Neither of them know how, but Dave found some years-old supplies and Klaus was enamored with the idea.

A low chuckle filters through the door, and Ben pokes his head out again. He can just see the couch from here, and it looks like Dave has yarn criss-crossed all over his forearms. He’s smiling, and Ben knows why even before Klaus moves briefly into view. Klaus is all but _festooned_ in yarn, looking like a rather festive mummy (zombie mummy?), and his face is lit up brighter than the sun as he looks up at Dave.

Ben pulls his head back through the door to face Five. “Yeah, he’s really teetering on the edge,” he says flatly.

“You’re not _listening_ to me!” Five snaps.

“I don’t see why I _should!_ ” Ben shoots back, anger sparking to life inside his chest. “You spent most of last night muttering to yourself, in-between staring at Klaus like a creeper, and a couple hours ago you pull me aside and say you went to an apocalypse caused by _Klaus?_ Five, I don’t - okay, I can buy the apocalypse stuff. Barely, but I can, our lives are already so goddamn weird that might as well happen. And that’s incredibly worrying. But you’re saying _Klaus_ is going to kill people. You keep insisting that he’s dangerous, that he’s going to end the _world,_ and that’s - insane. You do realize that’s insane.”

“And exactly how is it insane?” Five says, eyes snapping, voice cold. “Please, tell me the flaw in my logic. I explained the state I found the world in - bodies everywhere, like everyone just dropped down dead at once. You said yourself that Klaus killed Pogo like that. Who else could have done it?”

“I don’t know, maybe one of the other thirty-six kids out there with unknown superpowers?” Ben says archly, then shakes his head. “But you’re accusing Klaus. He’s never hurt anyone, except for Pogo, and _believe me,_ Pogo fucking deserved that. Even then, he was so scared and sickened afterwards, I’m pretty sure he’d have thrown up if he could. He wouldn’t kill anyone else. No fucking way.”

“Will you stop willfully blinding yourself to the truth?” Five hisses. “We have _no_ idea what he’s capable of -”

“No, Five,” Ben says coldly. Because that’s too much. That’s way past too much. “Not we. _You. You_ have no idea what he’s capable of. _I_ have spent the last _seventeen years_ by his side. I’ve comforted him, and told him stories, and played with him, and talked with him, and kept him _sane._ I _know_ him, Five. I know what he’s afraid of, I know what he wants, I know how he thinks. The _last_ thing he wants is to hurt anyone - except himself, of course. He doesn’t care about that. But for the first time, I think he might be able to be happy, to be _glad_ he failed to kill himself, and I’m not letting you guilt him into thinking otherwise.”

Five is still, and silent, just staring at Ben. Ben knows better than to think he’s shut Five up for good, but the brief respite is relieving.

Then Five opens his mouth, and Ben braces for more arguing, more heated words, but instead, Five just says, quietly, “He killed himself?”

….Oh. Right. Ben didn’t mention that part yesterday.

“....Yeah,” Ben says, sagging. “He - yeah.”

For the first time, Five looks - uncertain. It’s an alien expression on his alien face, the lines and faint wrinkles of his almost sixty-year-old skin standing out even more starkly.

“Why?” Five says. “Was it - because of me?”

Ben looks at him tiredly. “No, Five,” he says eventually. “It wasn’t because of you. It was because of Dad, because he kept pushing Klaus to the breaking point.”

“Because I ran,” Five says. “Because he wanted to know if I was alive or not.”

“Yeah,” Ben sighs. “But you weren’t responsible for what Dad did. Whatever that was.”

“You don’t know?”

Ben looks away. “Klaus can’t talk about it,” he admits. “He can’t even really think about it without falling into a panic attack. I think that’s partially because his brain can’t change very much, but also partially because it was just that bad. Because it _was_ bad. We knew it was bad even when he was alive. We didn’t understand how bad, though. They still don’t, and I only understood when I found him again and learned he bashed his own head in trying to get away. I stopped trying to learn the details when he tried to kill himself again in a panic after I questioned him too much.” Ben taps his left eye to emphasize.

Five looks fairly pale, which is understandable enough. Ben remembers his own feelings at finding out, the horror and shock of it all, the knee-jerk reaction to reject that such a thing could ever happen to his brother. The desperate denial, the fear-soaked horror of it all.

But it is real. It is. And the most they can do is accept that, and try to make it better. In whatever small way they can.

“So,” Ben says, closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall. “So. I need you to understand, Five. I know Klaus. And he’s not okay. Not even close. But he’s getting _better._ I know you just came in yesterday, but he’s expressed more emotion these past three days than the past five years put together. What’s more, most of it is _positive_ emotion. You really, really have no idea just how big a deal that is. He’s being given freedom. He’s being taken care of. He’s experiencing _happiness._ That’s all he’s _ever_ wanted. So hearing you say that he’s going to go on some sort of murder spree is a _little_ farfetched.”

“How do you explain the eye, then?” Five says.

“You said Luther had it?” Ben says. Five nods mutely, and Ben sighs. “Then maybe Klaus met up with them before the end of the world, although I can’t imagine why. Maybe Klaus gave it to him. Maybe it’s a different eye altogether. Maybe a lot of things happened, Five. Why do you think the owner of the eye is the one who _caused_ the apocalypse, instead of someone who was fighting against it?”

From the look on Five’s face, he never actually considered that. God save Ben from his idiot siblings.

“....You didn’t find Klaus?” Ben says after a moment. “In the apocalypse?”

“No,” Five says at once. “Not a trace. Or, well, I thought,” he glances at the door with a look of discomfort.

“Oh,” Ben says.

He doesn’t think about what might have happened to Klaus, in the future Five is describing. He doesn’t. He doesn’t realize that whatever cataclysm happened to kill off the human race, chances are it didn’t affect Klaus. He doesn’t wonder what Klaus did in that wrecked wasteland of a world, to make it so he never crossed paths with Five. He doesn’t.

Ben has grown very good at not thinking about things, over the years.

“Regardless of whether Klaus is the one who causes it,” Five says eventually, and Ben can tell that despite his words Five still isn’t convinced of Klaus’ innocence, “The fact remains that the world is going to end today. We have to stop it.”

“How?” Ben says tiredly. “How do we do that, Five? What was even your plan?”

Five is silent. Ben takes that to mean he didn’t, actually, have all that much of a plan.

“Look,” Ben says, drawing in a breath. “We don’t know what may or may not happen today. All we can really do is keep watch. We know to be on the lookout, and if we need something done Klaus will definitely do whatever we ask _as long as you don’t accuse him of potential genocide._ I’m willing to go along with this, but not if it breaks Klaus’ trust in me. It’s all he has. Okay?”

Five definitely doesn’t look happy about it, but after a couple seconds he gives a slight, shallow nod. Ben lets out a sigh of relief.

Then, faintly, there’s the sound of a knock on a door.

A few seconds later, Klaus slips into the room. “Dave is getting the door,” he says. “He says it’s the makeup.”

Klaus looks mostly blank-faced, but Ben is used to reading him, and it’s pretty obvious that he’s excited. Suddenly, Ben remembers back when he was alive, and always loved stealing Allison’s makeup and clothing. She hated it, of course, and eventually rumored him to stop, but those few times are the clearest memories Ben has of Klaus being happy.

“That’s great, Klaus,” Ben smiles. “Looking forward to putting it on?”

Klaus bobs his head. It’s _weird_ to see him with two eyes again. He hasn’t taken the prosthetic out once since yesterday, but Ben still hasn’t quite gotten used to it yet. The eye is - not entirely convincing as being Klaus’ own, since it’s a different color and doesn’t move and Klaus does not in fact have a left eyelid anymore, but it’s leagues less attention-grabbing than an empty socket.

Well, less attention-grabbing to most people. Five can’t seem to tear his gaze away from the prosthetic whenever he sees it.

But they don’t have to think about that right now. Dave calls Klaus out again shortly, and sets down the makeup kit on the coffee table. Klaus sits on the couch next to him, and Dave hums.

“I should probably warn you,” he says. “I’ve rarely ever applied makeup. I dated - someone - once who liked it, and helped them put it on every so often, but that was well over thirty years ago now.”

“Were they pretty?” Klaus says.

“Oh, yes,” Dave says, and a wistful smile lights up his face. “The prettiest. Mostly by their own efforts, though, so don’t expect a miracle.”

“What happened to them?” Klaus says. Ben is a little curious about that himself.

Dave pauses as he’s opening up the kit, and a brief flash of pain passes over his face. “....Got sick,” he says. “A lot of people got sick, back then.”

“Oh,” Klaus says. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Dave says, smiling a little sadly and ruffling Klaus’ hair. “Now, let’s see if I still remember how to do this….”

“Mm,” Five says, keeping his voice low as Dave starts to do mysterious and arcane things with powders and brushes. “Well. That’s convenient.”

“What is?’ Ben asks.

“Come on, Ben,” Five says, raising an eyebrow in that infuriating way of his. “You can’t tell me you ever thought our brother was straight. So it’s - good, that he has someone to support him there. Someone like him.”

Ben blinks, but rallies. “I don’t think his sexuality is anywhere near the top ten priorities here. It’s not like he’s going to grow older and start dating.”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Five says. “But - back when we were kids, I always worried about that. You know Dad didn’t particularly like it. So. It’s - nice, finally having that solved.”

“...I guess,” Ben says. Frankly, he doesn’t give a damn _what_ gender Dave is attracted to. The man gained Ben’s seal of approval the moment he offered Klaus that first hug. The one thing Ben most wanted to give Klaus, and Dave did it. And more than that - he’s taken Klaus in with no hesitation, given Klaus entertainment and comfort and kind words, and he’s doing his best to give Klaus the kind of freedom they never even considered Klaus could have again. All of that, and as far as Ben can tell he hardly even wants a thank-you.

Yeah. Dave definitely has Ben completely in his corner.

Five pads over to look at the shelves lining the walls, peering at the photos. He keeps throwing glances back at Dave and Klaus on the couch, where Dave is carefully applying more makeup. Ben has no idea how long this is going to take, so he ambles over to stand next to Five.

“That’s Dave, there,” he says, pointing at the photo Dave showed them when they first arrived at the apartment. “In Vietnam.”

“Vietnam?” Five blinks. He peers closer. “I’ve been there.”

“What?” Ben says, startled.

Five appears to suddenly realize what he said, and looks uncomfortable. “Never mind,” he dismisses, and turns away from the photo.

Ben blinks, and almost asks what Five means by _that,_ but he’s distracted by Dave saying his name.

“Ben? Five? What do you think so far?” Dave says.

Going over to where Klaus is sitting on the couch, looking up with suppressed excitement, Ben looks over Dave’s work.

It’s….not incredible. Ben knows nothing about makeup, but even he can see this was an amateur job. Klaus’ skintone isn’t all that convincing, and the holes around his lips aren’t covered up _very_ well, and nothing can really make his fake eye look convincing.

But. But. He looks leagues better than he did before. Under low light….Ben thinks that yeah, he probably could pass as alive.

He conveys this, careful not to crush Klaus’ joy. Five is a bit less diplomatic, but he does agree that giving Klaus a large, bulky coat to hide his lack of arm and a hat to cover his patchy hair would render him downright normal-looking as long as he doesn’t go in direct sunlight.

“Really?” Klaus breathes, looking like he’s just had sixteen years worth of birthday presents dropped on him at once. In a way, Ben thinks with a pang, he pretty much has.

“Well,” Dave says, regarding Klaus fondly. “Then I think, if you feel like you’re up to it, we can go out for a walk around the neighborhood once it gets a bit darker.”

Klaus nods his head so fervently Ben is worried more of his hair will fall off. Thankfully, it doesn’t.

“This is a waste of time,” Five mutters, and the only reason Ben limits himself to just a glare in response is because Klaus doesn’t hear him, too busy excitedly discussing with Dave where in the neighborhood they’ll be going on their walk.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Diego all but collapses into the chair, uncaring of the fact that the old wood creaks under his weight. He stares blankly at the ceiling, hearing his siblings also settling down around him. There is a blanket of silence laid over the room, smothering not just words but thought as well.

At least, Diego would _like_ if it smothered all sorts of thoughts. There’s a few, looping around in his head, over and over, that he’d really prefer not to be there.

As if by magic, Allison plucks one right out of his head and gives voice to it.

“We aren’t going to find him,” she says tiredly.

Part of Diego wants to flinch at the words. The other part….pretty much agrees with her.

It’s been - Diego cranes his head to check the clock - just over thirty hours or so since they found out about Klaus. About his reanimation, his imprisonment, and his recent jailbreak. Thirty hours of combing through the city, freaking out the whole way.

Thirty hours of dealing with the knowledge that Diego rejected his brother, screamed in his face and assaulted him.

Apparently Allison did the same, but that isn’t exactly a comfort. That just means Klaus must be even more convinced they think he’s a monster. Every time Diego replays that scene in his mind, he wants to go back and strangle himself.

Oh, there are excuses. Diego was enormously drunk at the time, enough that the edges of the memory are blurred and unreliable. He was under an enormous amount of pressure and trauma, both from killing his own mother and fearing for Five’s life (a fear that turned out to be _extremely_ fucking justified, but he pushes away the now-familiar sharp stab of pain). He had no reason to believe that Klaus was real instead of a guilt-induced hallucination, and Klaus’ appearance was - gruesome, to say the least.

All of those excuses are just that, though. Excuses. In the light of that small, broken “Oh,” after Diego threw that knife into Klaus’ chest (god, oh god, he _threw a knife into his brother’s chest_ ), they’re just dust on the wind.

Seventeen years. Klaus spent _seventeen **years**_ in that tiny, bare room. He went insane in that room, Dad’s journal made that clear enough. He painted the walls with his own blood, crude childish drawings of a hundred different things. He tore his own arm off, disassembled it down to the constituent parts, apparently used his own bones as playing pieces. His clothing was a bundle of rags, fashioned into little worn items to keep him entertained. He was locked in that _fucking_ room, underneath their feet the whole time, and they never knew it. They never even suspected.

Diego has been certain for a long, long time that Klaus is dead. He almost took comfort in it sometimes, because he knows how bad things can get for people with no support and no skills in survival. He thought that Klaus could finally be at peace, away from Dad’s torture and the poison inside these goddamned walls.

Well, turns out he was right about all of that.

Technically.

The worst fucking technicality of all goddamned time.

Diego has never, ever wished so badly to be wrong.

“No, we will,” Luther says. “We will find him. We have to.”

Diego closes his eyes. “What makes you say that?” he says tiredly. “Belief in our skills or your own guilt?”

 _“I didn’t know,”_ Luther says at once.

“He didn’t say you did,” Vanya says quietly. “But we’re all feeling guilty. We all believed Dad when he lied to us. We never thought anything like this could happen to Klaus. We thought he was okay, and he - wasn’t.”

A harsh laugh splits the air, and it takes Diego a moment to realize that it came from him. He hauls himself up to see his siblings looking at him. He ignores Luther and Allison, and looks Vanya straight in the eye.

“You thought he was _okay?_ ” Diego says, making his voice as scathing as he possibly can. “Is that what you thought? That’s how you justified never showing any kind of concern? God, you’re as naive as Luther.”

“Diego,” Allison says, but he just glares at her.

“No,” Diego says, glaring at her. “No, really, if she thought _that_ she really is an idiot. Did _you_ ever think Klaus survived, when we thought he ran away?”

Allison looks away. “I - used to.”

“Yeah,” Diego says. “When we were kids. When we were stupid brainwashed kids who thought we were invincible. But then we grew up, and how long did it take you to realize he probably died within weeks?”

Allison doesn’t answer.

“And then,” Diego’s voice is climbing, but he doesn’t care, he _doesn’t fucking care,_ “Then we learn that we didn’t actually grow up, not all the way. Because we still took for granted that Dad _ever_ told the truth. That he was a fucking monster, sure, but not that he would ever torture our brother until he killed himself, and then drive him completely _insane._ We believed that _Vanya_ didn’t have powers just because he said so. Just like that. He never let us hear about the protests against the Umbrella Academy, he made us kill people and said it was for the greater good, he never let us have any freedom, he was the _definition_ of a child abuser, he lied to us about _everything,_ and yet we _never_ thought to question whether Klaus really ran away.”

Diego takes in a deep, shuddering breath. His siblings are looking at him with various levels of surprise and alarm. He’s not entirely sure where he’s going with this rant, but he knows he needs to say it, _someone_ needs to say it.

“But he was here,” Diego says, suddenly feeling his chest collapse in on itself, the energy abruptly leaving his muscles. “He was - he was always here. Because Dad was a fucking monster and decided to lock him in a cage for sixteen fucking years.”

Luther opens his mouth.

 _“Don’t defend him,”_ Diego snarls.

“I wasn’t!” Luther says.

Silence follows his words. Perfect, ringing silence.

They

all

stare.

“...Seriously?” Allison says.

“I….” Luther looks around at all of them. His face twists up in - pain? “Wait, you really - you think I’d support that? Locking up one of our siblings?”

“Well, if _Dad_ told you….” Diego says without thinking.

_“I’m not Dad!”_

There’s silence again.

Luther swallows, and looks around at all of them again. Then he looks down at the floor.

“I’m not Dad,” he repeats, heavily. “And I - I don’t want to be.”

Diego….doesn’t know what to say to that.

It’s been one of the cornerstones of his world, for as long as Diego can remember, that Number One was Dad’s golden boy. Always faithful, always eager to please, always an instrument of Dad’s will. Sure, he rebelled in small ways sometimes, like sneaking out to Griddy’s and sneaking off with Allison and, on one memorable occasion, sneaking into Diego’s room and rearranging all the furniture while Diego was asleep. But he never went against Dad on the ‘important’ things, AKA Umbrella Academy business. He never protested, never even _acknowledged,_ that Dad’s treatment of them could be wrong in any way. He always, always defended Dad’s actions, his abuse. Sometimes he was flat-out eager about it.

Hearing Luther denounce Dad might honestly be more surprising than learning Vanya has powers.

Then again, if _anything_ could do it, learning that Dad threw their brother in solitary confinement for sixteen years for no reason is it.

Without saying a word, Allison goes over and hugs Luther. He visibly tenses, and doesn’t hug back, but he relaxes fractionally after a couple seconds.

Diego tips his head back, and breathes out.

He’s so fucking tired.

“....Diego?” Vanya ventures.

He debates not looking over at her, but a flash of memory of her lying in that hospital bed has him turning his head.

“I….” Vanya looks uncertain. She looks down. “I’m sorry, I don’t - I thought _we_ were why Klaus - did what he did. Because we didn’t like his powers. But you were just saying that Dad….did something.”

Luther and Allison look over at Diego with moderate surprise on their faces. Clearly, they’re just as clueless as Diego always thought. He closes his eyes.

“Of course he did,” Diego says. The words come out surprisingly level. Whenever he thought about calling out his remaining siblings for this, he pictured a lot more screaming, accusations, and knives.

The thought of wielding a knife against any of his siblings now makes him want to throw up.

“You didn’t notice,” he says. Not accusingly. Just stating a fact. “Luther and Allison were always wrapped up in themselves and each other. You were always off by yourself. None of you noticed what Dad was doing to him, to get him to try and contact Five.”

“....What was he doing?” Allison says slowly.

Diego lets out a bitter snort. “Fuck if I know. He was pale all the time, not sleeping well, walked around in a daze. Pretty sure he lost weight. Drank more. Quieter - I’m surprised you didn’t notice that one. He never smiled, or laughed. I’d say he looked like the walking dead, but.” Diego shakes his head. “You didn’t notice, in that fucking journal? ‘ _Another_ fit.’ Whatever he was doing to Klaus caused him to have _multiple_ breakdowns. We - Ben and I - we didn’t know that part. But we talked about asking him, maybe. We were fucking cowards because we - we wanted to know about Five. But we knew something was wrong, and we were getting more convinced that we should intervene. ‘Course, we should have fucking _intervened_ a long time before that.”

Taking in a deep breath, Diego rubs a hand up his face and through his hair. He lets the air go.

“Ben and I talked about it the day before he died,” Diego says. “We didn’t decide to do anything before then, and I’ve always been mad at myself about that. Anyone with eyes could see Klaus wasn’t okay. The meeting, it was - it was the spark, I’m pretty sure. Maybe. But Dad was the one who set him up to burn.”

No one speaks for several minutes, after that. Diego doesn’t really expect them to.

“Do….” Vanya says. He hears her swallow. “Do you think we’ll find him?”

“There were sightings,” Luther says.

“Days old,” Diego counters. He looks over at his one living brother. “And the witnesses weren’t exactly reliable.”

“Still,” Luther says. “We should keep looking.”

“Let me guess, you have _faith_ that we’ll find him,” Diego says. He feels so fucking tired, weariness weighing down his bones, exhausted enough that his words lack any sort of bite.

“....I don’t know,” Luther says. He sounds hesitant. “I don’t know what to believe anymore, honestly. But I think - I think we’ve already had one brother returned to us and then lost this week, and I don’t want to make it two.”

And. Well.

None of them can really counter that.

“We’ll go out looking again tonight,” Allison says at last. “After dinner.”

Diego closes his eyes, and nods his assent. Hears Luther and Vanya murmer agreement.

It’s all they can do, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: discussion of suicide, discussion of brainwashing and child soldiers, referenced past torture and aftereffects of torture.
> 
> Props to those who spot the John Mulaney reference!
> 
> The next chapter is the last 'full' one, so to speak. The final chapter is more like an epilogue, and shorter.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings at end.

When he was a child - an actual child, not the parody of youth his miscalculated time-jump reduced him to - Five never really paid much attention to Klaus’ powers.

There are many reasons for that. Likely some of them Five has even forgotten, in the half a century since interacting with his brother. The most ridiculous, however, has to be his unease over animating the dead.

Five has a…. _complicated_ relationship with the dead. When he was a child, he didn’t like Klaus’ powers. Seeing dead things just up and walking around was - unnerving. Creepy. Terrifying, even. But half of the reason he acted distant towards Klaus was because Five didn’t like _feeling_ that way. He always hated feeling like he wasn’t in control of himself. His brother’s powers were something inexplicable, and inexplicability always was one of Five’s biggest pet peeves.

After going to the apocalypse, however, death was….everywhere. Bodies in the streets, in homes, in cars, everywhere he went. All dead, all rotting, stinking, filling the air with death, death, and more death.

Five got very used to corpses, after that.

Honestly, it’s to the point where Klaus’ state would barely even be notable, if it wasn’t his brother all those injuries are on. Looking at Klaus now, and dimly remembering how Five was unnerved by necromancy as a child, he can’t help but feel disgusted with his younger self. Little Number Five thought a dead squirrel was creepy? God, he didn’t have a stomach to speak of.

Growing up in the apocalypse, Five more than once wished he could have had Klaus’ necromatic powers handy. Building, scavenging, searching, _doing_ everything by himself was incredibly dangerous; having the ability to animate all the numerous corpses around could have lightened the load _considerably._

They were just bodies, after all. Not like anyone was using them anymore.

“Five, look,” Klaus’ voice calls.

Five snaps out of his memories and looks over at Klaus. His brother is standing in front of him, proudly pointing at his own face. Five presumes he’s indicating the makeup, which Dave has been busy touching up for the past fifteen minutes.

Ben gives Five a _look_ over Klaus’ shoulder, clearly warning Five to complimentary. The glare isn’t very impressive, honestly, but Five sighs a little and looks at Klaus.

“It’s nice,” he says.

“Thank you,” Klaus says, evidently pleased. He looks over to where Dave is rummaging around a closet, and goes over to help.

Moving closer, Ben raises his eyebrow at Five. “You still think Klaus is going to kill everyone?”

“It’s possible,” Five says, suddenly feeling tired.

Ben doesn’t bite his head off, thankfully. A flash of anger appears on his face, but fades just as quickly. Then he just looks as tired as Five feels. “What’s it going to take to convince you?”

“The world living to see tomorrow,” Five says flatly.

“....Fair enough, I guess,” Ben says, scrubbing a hand down his face.

Five isn’t sure Ben really believes him about the apocalypse. It hurts, that. It’s a hurt Five doesn’t know how to defend against, because he’s never had to, never even thought he might have to. The apocalypse is - it’s his _life._ Sometimes it feels like it’s always been his life, even when he didn’t know about it. Like he must have known, on some level, even before he ran out on that breakfast. It’s always been there, inside of him, shaping his entire existence.

Hearing people deny it - worse, hearing his _siblings_ deny it, his siblings who are the one other constant of his universe, his reason to keep going - is like hearing them deny the existence of water. He spent forty years there, grew old there, lived there, and then they just….don’t believe him. Don’t believe it happened. Tell him that his entire life isn’t real.

Well, at least Ben isn’t telling him _outright._ It’s probably why Five is going along with this.

Although, frankly, Five isn’t entirely sure _why_ he’s going along with this. The apocalypse - the apocalypse happens _tonight,_ Five knows it does, and the invisible countdown keeps ticking away inside his head, getting louder and louder with each second. He should be trying to stop it, doing everything he can to neutralize the threat, and instead he’s about to go on a fucking walk.

Maybe that really is the most he can do, though.

Because. Well. It was easier, when he was alive. It was easier when the owner of the eye was a faceless, shadowy figure, when he didn’t know their identity. It was so, so much easier when Five thought the best way, the _only_ way of stopping this, was to kill the eye’s owner.

Even if he was physically capable, though, and Klaus is at all capable of actually dying for real, Five doubts he could ever bring himself to murder his little brother.

(He’d still be little compared to Five if he’d grown up like all their other siblings, but there’s the extra impact that he - didn’t. Aside from the undeath, the injuries, he looks just like the brother Five left behind, and what’s more he _acts_ like him too. Five’s memories are hazy and blurry, and he’s pretty sure the traumatic isolation has caused Klaus to mentally regress at least some, but any way you look at it - Klaus is a child. He’s a young child, one unable to grow up, and he’ll stay that way. Forever.

Five can distance himself from a hell of a lot, but there’s no way he could ever forget that.)

“Alright,” Dave says. “I think that looks convincing. What do you think, boys?”

Five bristles at being called a _boy,_ because even if this man is a genuinely-older-than-him war vet, he hasn’t seen _half_ the shit Five has seen. But he remembers a moment before snapping at Dave that the man can’t hear him, so instead he grudgingly looks at Klaus.

His little brother looks….moderately convincing, actually, even in this light. He’s wearing a slightly dusty old baseball cap, disguising the patches of missing hair, and Dave found a coat large enough that the sleeves cover up his actual hand, so the missing one isn’t even noticeable. His shoes are clearly too big for him, but they shouldn’t be too eye-catching. The makeup….still isn’t stellar, but if Five didn’t know better he’d assume Klaus just had some kind of facial disfigurement instead of literally being undead. It should be better under the cover of twilight.

“You look great, Klaus,” Ben beams, and Five gives a short nod of agreement.

“Does this mean we’re going out now?” Klaus says, looking between Dave and the door.

“Sure does,” Dave says, finishing up with his own shoes. He straightens with a grunt, and against his will Five winces in sympathy. He may have only made it to fifty-eight, but the apocalypse has a way of weathering you. Five is honestly surprised he managed to become such an elite killer when his bones felt like they were much closer to ninety than sixty.

Dave opens the door, and offers his hand to Klaus. Klaus stares at the doorway for a second, and Five can’t really decipher his expression.

Then he takes Dave’s hand, gripping it tightly, and steps outside the apartment.

**********

Unsurprisingly, the walk is boring.

Five has walked all over this city, okay? Sure, it’s interesting to see when it’s not all strewn with bodies and half-collapsed into ruin, but none of this place is all that interesting to him. His mind automatically calculates where various supplies might be, which spots he remembers as being particularly unstable, but he tries so fucking hard to push that away. He’s trying to _avoid_ that kind of outcome.

There really isn’t that much else to do, though.

Klaus seems to be having a grand old time, at least. Sometimes he’ll ask Dave or Ben a question about their surroundings, or stop still to stare at something that’s caught his attention, but for the most part he’s content to keep a tight hold on Dave’s hand as they walk at a slow, steady pace, turning his head this way and that to take everything in. Ben watches him with an unbearably sappy look, and Dave isn’t that much better.

Clearly, Five is the one who has to focus on the important details here.

He tips his head back and tries to remember the scene he first came upon when he jumped to the future. It’s not that hard, despite the intervening time. He hasn’t managed to forget about it, dull the memory even slightly, for the past forty-five years, no matter how hard he tries.

One would expect an apocalypse would be filled with leveled buildings, fire everywhere, ash choking the sky, the ground coated in rubble and bodies.

Well, there were bodies alright. And fires. Even a few downed buildings here and there. But as far as Five could figure out, all the structural damage occurred when no humans were left to stop the lit stoves and power plants and active construction machinery and such from getting out of control (he never went within five hundred miles of _any_ nuclear facility). Aside from that, the only thing that made it an apocalypse was all the bodies. People lying in the streets, inside their cars, holding bags and eating food and reading books and clearly entirely unaware of their impending doom. By all evidence, the only thing that happened is that every single human being just - _died,_ all at once. Like their brains suddenly all decided to abruptly switch off.

The only exceptions were his family.

He found them together. Luther, Diego, Allison and Vanya. Luther was holding the eye, and there were clear marks of his superstrength being used around the area. Diego was missing nearly all of his knives, although weirdly there were none in sight. They had obviously died trying to defend their sisters, Allison in turn defending Vanya, but ultimately failed.

It was hard to determine who they’d died fighting against. There were no other bodies around, and as far as Five could determine there was a fuckoff huge storm either during or right after the fight, probably as large as the one shortly before Five’s death, so there was little in the way of forensic evidence.

They all died like everyone else, though. They had injuries, yes, but - not life-threatening ones. They should have lived.

They should have _lived._

So yes. When Five first heard how Pogo died, how Klaus killed him without leaving a mark, he panicked. _Of course he fucking did._ But Five is still pretty certain that Klaus is the one who causes the apocalypse, for _some_ reason.

He doesn’t know why. Part of him doesn’t _want_ to know why. Because his little brother, his young, traumatized, _dead_ little brother, seems to have zero motivation for killing anyone. Spending the past day and a half around him has made that pretty clear. Klaus doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He literally just wants a fucking hug.

“Hey,” Ben says.

Five looks over at him.

Ben looks uncertain, but plows on. “I don’t know what you’re feeling right now,” he says. Which is gratifying to hear, in a way. If Ben tried to claim empathy with Five right now he would find a way to punch his brother in the face, incorporeality be damned. “But I do think that the apocalypse won’t happen. In that future you saw….maybe the difference is that Klaus never found Dave. Maybe that’s what happened.”

Five blinks at him, then cuts a glance over at Klaus and Dave, who have stopped and sat down on a bus bench for a while. He looks back at Ben. “I thought you said Klaus would never hurt anyone.”

“He never _wanted_ to hurt anyone,” Ben corrects, sighing. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Look, I - I’ve been thinking. And I still stand by what I said earlier. Klaus has improved so much these past few days, I can’t imagine him snapping and going on some kind of killing spree. But….I didn’t want to think about what he was like when I first found him. After I died. He was - he wasn’t okay. He wasn’t sane. He….could have hurt people, in that state. And I’ve done so fucking much to bring him back from there, but deep down I knew I was just treading water. If we never ran into Dave….” Ben trails off.

“He might have snapped,” Five says slowly.

“Yeah,” Ben says softly. “Yeah. A few more days of attacks, people screaming at him, calling him a monster at every turn, maybe running afoul of the law, and….I don’t think I would’ve been able to keep his mind held together. Depending on the trigger, he could have snapped - explosively.”

Five runs that through his head. It….sounds logical, honestly. He believes Ben when he says that Dave has been an enormously positive influence on Klaus. Even if Five were a more skeptical person (and he’s already pretty damn skeptical to begin with), Dave has been consistent in treating Klaus with respect and kindness and a kind of absurd amount of indulgence. Klaus clearly loves the man. He’d never destroy a world with Dave in it.

Something flits across Five’s mind, a thought he almost manages to catch, but before he can he hears Klaus say, “Five, come on!”

Five startles, and then realizes Klaus, Dave and Ben are several dozen feet ahead of him. He hurries to catch up. It’s nice to have his adult height back, because if he remembers correctly Klaus at thirteen is taller than Five was at thirteen and that would just be unacceptable in this situation.

“We’re going to the park,” Klaus says gravely as Five reaches them. “I’ve never been to a park. Dave says it’s nice.”

Five has been to all of the city’s parks, albeit when they were all overgrown and full of rotting corpses. it might be nice to see how they look otherwise. He looks through his mental map of the city relative to where they are and says, “Wilson’s Park?”

Klaus repeats this to Dave, and Dave nods. “That’s the place,” he says. “I like to go there every so often. It’s peaceful. There’s a pond, and some ducks in the summer months. Maybe they’ll be there.”

“Ducks,” Klaus says, pronouncing it like a foreign word. “Those are….birds. Right?”

“Yeah,” Ben says, smiling. “Exactly. I have to ask, Dave, do you feed the ducks?”

Klaus blinks. “We can feed the ducks?”

“We can,” Dave says, nodding. “Although not tonight, I didn’t think to bring anything along. But we can come back when we know they’re there and feed them. They’re all fat because everyone wants to feed them, they’ll all waddle around, but they’ll still take everything you give them. Greedy little guys.”

“I want to feed them,” Klaus says, his real eye shining. “Is there special duck food?”

“God, you sound like Sparks,” Dave chuckles. “Nah, you can just feed them bread.”

Five glances between the three, but none of them elaborate. He leans towards Ben and mutters, “Sparks?”

“Oh,” Ben shakes his head. “Uh, one of the guys Dave served with in Vietnam. Because he kept sparking off one topic to another, or something. ‘How do you hotwire a jeep, what’s in that bag, how do you say “junkyard” in Vietnamese, Katz give me more rations please and thank you.’ That kind of stuff. Asking what ducks eat sounds pretty on-brand for him.”

“Oh,” Five says, nonplussed. Then, “Wait, Katz?”

“Yeah, Dave’s last name,” Ben says.

“Right,” Five says. “Of course.”

Then

he

goes

still.

“....Dave Katz,” he repeats.

“....Uh,” Ben says, coming to a stop beside him. “Yeah?”

Five blinks, staring at Dave’s back.

“When did he serve in Vietnam?” Five says slowly.

“Late sixties? Why?” Ben looks between Dave and Five warily. “Five?”

Dave and Klaus are now several dozen feet ahead of them, but Five can’t make his feet move for some reason.

“His squad was wiped out,” Five says. “He was the only survivor. It was basically a miracle.”

“.....Five, how did you know that?” Ben says.

“Because,” Five says. “I’m the one who saved him. And that means - he’s _essential -_ ”

Almost as if on cue, a half-dozen shadows emerge from the alleyway in front of Dave and Klaus. They stop.

“And how are you two fine gennlemen doing on thish fine evening?!” one of the shadows says, slurring his words, clearly drunk.

Sliding in front of Klaus, keeping his voice perfectly even, Dave replies, “We’re doing fine. Could you please let us through?”

“Hmm,” the voice says, as if pretending to think. “I think….nah. Not jusht yet.”

And it is then, with horrible, blinding clarity, that Five realizes the one other way Klaus could snap and end the world.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

The past few days have not been easy.

In fact, they’ve been the hardest of Luther’s entire life.

Sitting in the cramped front seat of Diego’s car as they drive around town, searching out of the way places where an undead teenager might find shelter, occasionally hitting up Diego’s more shady contacts, Luther can’t help his thoughts turning inward.

It’s funny. He used to think that two of his brothers running away were the worst days of his life. Then he thought it was Ben dying, because he at least knew (believed, he believed in Dad, in a fairytale, in absolutely nothing) that Five and Klaus would come home one day. Ben never would.

Then there came his accident, and while it wasn’t _as_ bad as Ben dying, Luther has to remind himself of that sometimes. Because Ben is gone, out of his life forever, and even if Luther thinks about him often he isn’t reminded of Ben every second of every day like he is with his body. The days (weeks, months, years) following the accident were the hardest, and worst, ones of Luther’s life.

Then Dad died, and that was tied with Ben’s death and the accident, because - how could Luther go on? His father was the one constant in Luther’s life - not even his siblings stayed, not even them who were all supposed to stick by him because that’s what family _did,_ did they not want to be family anymore, did they not want him - and now Dad was dead. His whole world crumbled apart in that moment.

Then -

The journal.

Klaus.

Vanya.

_Five._

And -

Dad.

Dad, who lied to them. Lied to _him._ Who looked him in the eye (Luther was the only one he ever looked in the eye, even infrequently) and said that Five is fine, Klaus is safe, and Vanya is ordinary. Three tenants Luther lived by, and all of then turned to dust beneath his feet.

How did Dad justify it, Luther can’t help but wonder. How did Dad convince himself that taking that road, telling those lies, was the right thing to do? What prompted him to drug Vanya, use Allison to make her forget her powers, beat them all over the head with the lie that little Number Seven is ordinary, ordinary, ordinary? What made him so certain that Five would come home, that he would survive the storm he brought back with him, that they would be able to be a family again?

What made him think covering up their brother’s suicide, and imprisoning him beneath their feet for sixteen years, was in any way defensible?

All those years at the Academy. All those missions Luther went on alone. All that time, his brother was right there. Trapped, alone, and steadily going insane. Luther knows what extended solitude does to a mind, and Klaus didn’t even have a view of the sky, or a deck of cards, or a goddamned _clock._

And he went insane from it. And Pogo ended up dead. And now it looks like they’re going to regain and lose two brothers in the span of one week.

Speaking of Pogo. His body is still - down there. None of them wanted to touch it, and they were preoccupied with the reveal of Diego and Allison’s twin encounters and being horrified over everything they found inside Klaus’ cell and frantically trying to organize a search party for their apparent zombie brother.

It feels wrong, just leaving Pogo down there. They’ll have to - clean him up, somehow. Later. Luther tries not to be miserable about that, because there’s just so many awful things to be miserable about right now, but he knows _he’s_ going to have to be the one to carry Pogo out of there and - god, he doesn’t want to do that.

Pogo was his friend. Or at least Luther thought so. He was the closest Luther had to one, anyway. Dad rarely bothered to talk with him outside of mission parameters, and Mom was - nice, but she always treated him like a child.

Maybe she was right to, though. Because out of everyone in that house, Luther conversed with Pogo the most, talking about dozens of different things, laughing and joking together, reading books and sharing opinions and _bonding,_ and all the while Pogo knew. He knew about the prison cell underneath their feet. He knew Klaus was imprisoned, tortured daily by lack of human contact, and inexorably sliding into madness.

He knew. And he never breathed a word.

Diego’s radio crackles, and Diego taps it a couple times. “Eudora? You got anything?”

“Don’t call me that,” the woman says, like she has the past three times already. She sounds like she’s given up expecting Diego to listen, though. That’s probably the wisest course of action to take with him, honestly. Then she sighs. “No, there hasn’t been anything. Diego, maybe you should consider -”

“No,” Diego says, jaw set. “I’m not giving up, Dora. _We’re_ not giving up,” he adds, glancing at Luther in the side seat and Allison and Vanya in the back. Vanya is asleep, lying across Allison’s lap. At least it doesn’t look like she’s in pain - they were pretty on the fence about taking her along this time, considering how the first foray aggravated her wounds. But she insisted, and Luther has honestly never heard Vanya insist on _anything,_ so she came along but has to always stay in the car as a compromise. Luther can’t turn around well enough to see Allison, but he’s pretty sure she’s stroking Vanya’s hair or something Mom-ish like that.

“I was going to say getting some sleep,” Not-Eudora says (Diego hasn’t called her anything else, and she hasn’t said what else he should call her, so Luther can’t exactly refer to her by her last name or anything). She sounds tired, and a few shades gentler. “You can’t do much of anything if you’re exhausted, and you’ve been running on fumes for - a while.”

“Since Five died, you mean.” Diego says flatly.

Luther flinches to hear it said out loud like that. So casually.

“Yeah,” Not-Eudora says. She sounds even more tired than before. “Look, Diego, you want to find your brother before something bad happens, I get it.”

“No, you’ve got it wrong, Eudora,” Diego says sharply. Luther hears a faint murmur from the backseat and hopes Vanya isn’t waking up. “Something bad has _already_ happened. I need to find him before something _worse_ happens.”

“I gave you your radio back because I thought you needed an outlet that ended with criminals in jail and not you in a bodybag, Diego,” she says, a little sharper now. “Not so you can drive yourself into the ground anyways.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should have thought that through,” Diego drawls, and then switches the radio back to the oficial police frequency before she can respond.

There’s silence in the car for a few seconds, only broken by the static of dispatchers checking in with each other. Then Luther hears Allison shift slightly - it could be Vanya, but he doesn’t think she’s woken up all the way yet.

“Are you going to do that?” Allison says, with the kind of deliberate neutrality he can’t remember her using before. Or maybe she uses it all the time nowadays, he wouldn’t know.

“Hm?” Diego says, checking his mirrors.

“Drive yourself into the ground,” Allison says. “If we don’t find Klaus.”

“We’re going to find him,” Diego says.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Allison sighs.

“We are _going_ to _find him._ ” Diego says, enunciating every word.

“Yeah,” Allison says quietly. “That’s what I told myself when I hired a bunch of detectives a while back.”

Luther remembers her telling him about that. He also remembers telling her that of course Klaus was okay, Dad said so.

….He really was naive, wasn’t he?

“Sure,” Diego says. “But Klaus wasn’t actually out there when you did that. Now we know he’s somewhere in the city, and he can’t keep a low profile for long. We just have to _look._ ”

Allison doesn’t respond. Neither does Luther. Vanya is still asleep.

They drive in silence for several minutes. Luther has forgotten where they’re going, and honestly he wonders if Diego has too. Or if it even really matters.

The radio crackles to life. _“We have a report of a 242 and 390, a group of several intoxicated men beat and robbed a victim on the corner of 63rd and Walsh. Suspects are believed to be headed east, nearby cars check in.”_

“Huh, that’s just a few blocks away,” Diego mutters.

Luther looks over at him. “Should we look for them?”

Diego purses his lips and looks genuinely torn. “I….”

“I think we should,” Allison speaks up from the backseat. “I think we - need a break. We’re just going around in circles at this point. If we haven’t found Klaus by now, we won’t before morning, and we should end the day by doing _something_ productive.”

“....Fine,” Diego says grudgingly, and he turns to head east, sweeping through the streets.

Luther leans back in his seat and tries not to think about Klaus. About Five. Hell, about Vanya, curled up in the backseat, small enough that you don’t even have to be him to lift her. In all honesty, they didn’t put up much of a fight when she insisted on coming, because none of them forgot that the _last_ time she was left alone she got kidnapped and tortured. Luther would very much like to go the rest of his life without seeing her tiny form in another hospital bed, drowned in bandages and blankets, looking lost and half-dead.

Then he notices motion as they pass by a street. Quick, jerky motion, not the kind people normally make.

“Hey,” Luther says suddenly. He points. “Is that -”

Diego stops the car and squints. He stiffens. “Fuck, they’re attacking someone else -”

He doesn’t say any more before rocketing out of the car. The rest of them aren’t so quick - Luther curses his bulky body for the umpteenth time as he struggles to get out of the passenger seat, and Allison has to wake Vanya because like hell are they leaving her alone and undefended.

Luther can see Diego reach the knot of people and throw himself into the fray. He can’t tell how many people there are, but there are definitely more than Diego can handle in a straight fight, he knows his brother’s limits so he needs to get _over_ there and help -

A high scream splits through the air. Allison freezes as she’s halfway out the car door.

“That’s a _kid,_ ” she says, and then she’s flying like a bullet from a gun, even faster than Diego.

 _Fuck._ Luther yanks himself out the rest of the way and races towards the fight, Vanya staggering along behind him. He realizes when he’s halfway there that he probably should have scooped her up and carried her to the outskirts of the fight so she wouldn’t get left behind, but he can’t double back now.

Up close, he can see the people more clearly. Five of them are on the ground, although Luther feels pretty sure that the old man half-curled around a teen-ish boy are not the aggressors here. There are three more thugs still standing, but Diego and Allison seem to be making short work of them. Professionals, these guys are clearly not.

Luther decides that involving himself in the fight would just be overkill, and instead kneels down next to the two victims. The old man is doing his best to shield the boy, clutching him tightly to his chest, but the boy is wriggling and trying to escape. It sounds like he’s panicking.

“Dave, Dave, no, please, Dave, no, Dave,” he babbles, and the old man is trying to shush him, telling him it’s okay.

Luther has some experience with comforting frightened victims, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel extraordinarily awkward as he clears his throat. “Uh, hello? It’s okay, they aren’t going to hurt you anymore, you’re safe now.”

They both cut off speaking, going still. Luther hears Vanya’s footsteps come up behind him, and a glance upward reveal the last of the drunks falling to the ground with a _thud._ Diego and Allison barely look winded.

Cautiously, the old man looks up at Luther. The boy is suddenly entirely alright with being pushed deeper into the man’s chest, the man’s arm coming up to cover his head.

The old man - Dave? - has a cut on his temple, bleeding sluggishly. He blinks up at Luther.

“Oh,” he says, slowly. He looks around at the scattered drunks. “Hm. Well. Thank you for that.”

“Of course,” Deigo says, swaggering over. He looks down at the man and frowns. “Do you need an ambulance?”

“What?” Dave says. “Oh, no, I’ve had worse.”

“You should still get yourself checked out, and your grandson too,” Allison volunteers, coming forward. She leans down a little and offers a hand. “Do you think you can stand?”

“Of course,” Dave says, grimacing slightly. He grasps her hand, and -

Well, he gets up. It’s incredibly awkward, though, considering he refuses to unwrap his other arm from his grandson’s head, and said grandson refuses to uncling from his side. Shock, probably. Luther has to dart in when it looks like they’re about to fall over, and he steadies them before letting go.

“You should really get checked over,” Vanya says, looking at them in concern.

“Definitely,” Luther concurs.

“We’ll be fine, but thank you very much for saving us. I don’t know how I could ever repay you,” Dave says, heaving an enormous breath and looking down at his still-mute grandson with love and no small amount of relief. Luther pushes aside the pang that Dad never looked at him with anything near that amount of emotion.

“You can repay us by waiting for an ambulance,” Allison says. “You have a head wound, that always needs to be checked out, even if it doesn’t feel like anything serious.”

 _“What?”_ the boy says, pulling back from his grandfather’s arms. “Your head? It’s hurt? Dave -”

_**“Klaus?”** _

The boy freezes.

No.

 _Klaus_ freezes.

Because now Luther can see what the old man’s arm was hiding before - the patchy hair, the clearly misshapen head. Luther is only seeing Klaus’ face in profile, but he can see the bloodless pallor Diego and Allison spoke of, the holes around his lips, the way one sleeve of his coat is limp and empty.

He doesn’t see it for very long, of course, because Klaus hides against Dave’s chest again, and Dave does his best to shield him.

“No, of course no….” Dave trails off. “Sorry? How do you know….Oh. Oh. You’re his siblings.”

“Y-Yeah,” Diego says. His eyes seem to be glued to Klaus, which is fair, because Luther’s are pretty much the same.

“Klaus?” Vanya says, a slight quaver in her voice. She takes a step forward.

“Who are you?” Allison says. “Why is Klaus with you?”

Klaus seems to be trembling slightly. Dave begins rubbing his back. For some reason, that motion makes Luther relax, slightly.

“I’m Dave. And, well, why wouldn’t he be with me? Someone needed to take care of him.” Dave looks around all of them with an unimpressed expression.

It hits Luther harder than he’d like, and from the way everyone else flinches, they feel the same way.

“Klaus?” Allison says uncertainly. “Klaus, could you - could you please look at us?”

“Can we go home?” Klaus mumbles.

“Uh,” Luther blinks, still dazed, but he can feel his heart lifting. “Yeah, of course, Klaus, the car is right over -”

“No,” Klaus says. “Not the Academy. _Home._ ”

Dave’s expression softens in realization. “Of course, Klaus.” He briefly squeezes Klaus tighter.

Luther feels like that blue-masked man just hit him in the chest. From the looks of it, his other siblings feel the same way.

“Wait,” Diego says, stepping forward. “Wait, Klaus, no.”

Klaus flinches. Dave glares at Diego. “Do _not_ tell him what to do, sonny,” Dave says in clipped tones.

“We want to apologize,” Allison blurts.

Klaus goes still, and Dave raises an eyebrow.

“For - for how we reacted,” Allison falters. “Diego and I, we want to apologize for that. We’re sorry, we didn’t realize you were - real. We didn’t react well. We never meant to hurt you. We found Dad’s journal and that’s how we learned that you were - like this. We didn’t understand when you first showed yourself. We’ve been looking for you ever since.” She bites her lip. “There’s - there’s some things you need to know.”

Things he needs to know? Luther is briefly confused for a moment, before it hits him like a ton of bricks. Five. He doesn’t know about Five. Or Vanya’s powers, but he knows _nothing_ about -

“You mean Five?” Klaus says.

The

world

stops.

“You - you know about Five?” Vanya says faintly.

“Yeah,” Klaus says, like it’s obvious. “He’s dead. He told me so. And Ben told me when he came back, too.”

“You - you -” Luther says, and the world is spinning, spinning, crashing into his mind, the realization of _of course he can see Five, he can see dead people, he can see Ben oh god **Ben** is here too -_

“Alright,” Dave suddenly announces. “I think there is a lot going on here, and a street strewn with thugs is not the best place to get into it all. So in the spirit of cooperation, I think we should call the police, get these guys taken away, and then go back to my place where we can all detangle this damn mess you’ve all gotten yourselves into.”

“The Academy probably has more space -” Diego says.

“But my place has less trauma,” Dave cuts in with cheerful iron. He squeezes Klaus again. “Now, any objections?”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Klaus lifts his head up slightly. “Five says you have to be guarded at all times because you’re the catalyst for the apocalypse.”

“....Is that an objection to the plan?” Dave says.

“I don’t think so?”

“Then we’ll deal with that later,” Dave says. “Now, will someone call the police?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: assault, violence, discussion of emotional betrayal, mention of corpses, mention of all of Reginald's fuckery.
> 
> Several of you mentioned being sad at this fic's confirmation that it was Klaus' presence in Vietnam that killed Dave, and I could barely keep myself from laughing. I have seen so many Five-kills-Dave fics that I just had to turn it around and do the opposite. ;)
> 
> So! One or two of you guessed that Dave's death was the thing that would lead to the apocalypse, and you were right! Well, sort of. To summarize: in the original timeline, Dave was killed, and Klaus flipped out and did his little drop-dead trick on all the assailants. Then, being pretty damn unhinged and acting mostly on instinct, he animated all the corpses (yes, including Dave), and returned to the Academy. Unfortunately, his siblings freaked out at the squad of zombies led by their obviously unstable brother, and things - _escalated,_ in true Hargreeves fashion. The siblings wound up injuring Dave's body, which of course pretty much shredded the last scrap of sanity in Klaus' head, and ding-dong, the planet's dead.
> 
> In this timeline, though, Eudora saved the day! By which I mean she gave Diego his radio back after Five's death, which led to them hearing about the thugs and coming in to save the day. Bet you didn't see that one coming, huh? (I have failed to give Eudora the spotlight she deserves in this fic, so I made up for that by having her save the human race. Fair's fair.)
> 
> Only one more chapter! As previously mentioned, it's shorter and more of an epilogue. Thank you ever so much for sticking with me this long.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger....
> 
> ....wait. I think...I think there _aren't_ any trigger warnings for this chapter.
> 
> ...Huh.

Klaus likes his room.

It’s not the room he had when he was alive, and it’s not the room Dad put him in after he died. Klaus doesn’t particularly like either of those rooms, even if his childhood one is nicer than the basement one.

But the room he has at Dave’s is much nicer than either.

Klaus takes steps across the room, One, two, three, _four,_ five, six, seven. Seven steps.

He likes that. He has to take large steps to make it so it comes out to seven, but that’s okay. He likes that the room is large.

It also has _windows._ On three of the walls, even. Klaus never realized that windows could be so nice. Whenever the room is feeling too much like the basement room, he can look outside a window and the feeling goes away like magic (it’s probably not actual magic. Probably).

There’s also so much more inside his room now than in the basement. Not a bed, because he doesn’t sleep, but that just leaves more room for other things. He has a little couch of his own and lots of shelves of books and games he can play with himself _or_ other people and bins for craft supplies he doesn’t even have to make from his own body and murals on all of the walls in more than one color. It’s amazing.

“You like it?” Dave says from the doorway.

“Yes,” Klaus says immediately. He goes over and hugs Dave, because he can just _do_ that now, whenever he wants. Dave said so.

Dave hugs him back, patting him on the back. “I’m glad,” he says. “Although I guess I can’t be annoyed at your siblings any longer for giving me a house.”

Klaus peers up at him. “Why are you annoyed about that?”

“It’s not really something normal people do,” Dave says.

Klaus blinks at him, slowly. “We’re not normal.” He does know _that_ much.

Dave gives a huff of laughter. “True enough.” He takes one last look around Klaus’ room, looking faintly bemused. “Well. I asked Ben and Five to fetch you a couple minutes ago, so I can only assume they’re arguing again?”

“Oh. Probably.” Ben and Five argue a lot, and Klaus has learned to tune them out by now. He peers past Dave out into the hallway. “What did you need me for?”

“I wanted to see if you could help with putting away the dishes,” Dave says. He lets go of Klaus, and Klaus reluctantly does the same. He grabs onto Dave’s hand, which isn’t the same as a hug but is still nice. Dave leads him down the hall, humming something. Klaus goes along happily. The braces on his legs keep them together without leaning _too_ much on his powers, and he’s still getting used to that, but it doesn’t take much of his attention to walk anymore. He likes that.

Putting away the dishes is pretty boring, but not nearly as boring as most of Klaus’ existence has been. He asks Dave for a story, and Dave obliges and talks about that time he was ten and stole a neighbor’s birdbath. It’s pretty funny, but that’s only to be expected. Dave always has the best stories.

Klaus is really happy that he gets to live with Dave. His siblings were kind of upset about it, even if they tried to hide it, but Klaus doesn’t know why. They can still come and visit whenever they want to, and he _knows_ they don’t like looking at him. They always wince and look upset when they do.

They’ve apologized for how they acted when he first came up from the basement. They’ve said sorry for not realizing Dad hid him away. They’ve said that they love him.

Klaus thinks he might even believe them someday.

But he wants to live with Dave. And Dave said that that’s okay, that he’d be delighted to live with Klaus and take care of him, and he’s never acted otherwise. So as hard as that is to believe, Klaus does. And he’s determined to make Dave never regret it.

“- already _told_ you,” Five’s voice drifts in. Klaus looks up as both his ghostly brothers come into the kitchen, Five looking annoyed. Which is hardly new. “The Commission has extraordinary difficulty altering events that have occurred as a result of their own actions. My death caused the apocalypse to fail, which basically means they shot themselves in the foot. They can’t very well resurrect me, even if they wanted to, so they might try a few other tactics, but I believe they’ll eventually have to give up.”

“And you’re just….okay with being dead,” Ben says, looking skeptical.

“Considering it was integral in fulfilling my life’s goal? Yes,” Five says bluntly. “I mean, originally I considered seeing you again a bonus, but now I’m reconsidering.”

“Excuse you,” Ben says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m delightful.”

“Klaus?” Dave says.

“Oh,” Klaus says, realizing he’s stopped putting dishes away. “Sorry. Ben and Five are arguing.”

“We’re _discussing_ temporal physics,” Five says, not breaking the glare he’s leveling at Ben.

“No, we’re arguing,” Ben says, looking amused. “It’s actually pretty great, I haven’t been able to argue with anyone since I died.”

“Sorry,” Klaus says.

“Not your fault.”

Everyone keeps saying that. Klaus just nods uncertainly.

He and Dave finish putting the dishes away. Then they decide to watch a movie - one of the really old ones, from before even Dave was born. Klaus likes those, even if he’s not actually sure why. Ben and Dave says it’s okay for him to not know, because he’s experiencing so many new things that he probably won’t be able to process _all_ of it.

“When is everyone else coming over for the housewarming party again?” Ben asks.

“Sometime after dark,” Five dismisses. “Klaus, watch that one, I made it possible to exist in the first place.”

“Okay,” Klaus says, picking it out.

“Did they have to buy me a new TV?” Dave wonders as they settle down on the couch.

“When you’re a Hargreeves, there’s no such thing as overkill,” Ben says.

“There’s no such thing as overkill, period,” Five corrects.

“Plus,” Ben says, looking at Dave. “You’re taking care of Klaus. Of course they want you to have the best stuff available to do that. We’re - bad at saying thank you. And at coping with….stuff.”

Klaus conveys all this to Dave, who raises his eyebrows. “You’re also bad at identifying rhetorical questions. Good at stating the obvious, though.”

Ben and Five both look annoyed. Klaus giggles.

They settle down to watch the movie, and it’s nice. Klaus has to have a few things explained to him, but Dave never looks at him funny for forgetting what that clicky-typing thing is or why the two leads can’t forget the girl and marry each other.

(“They _do_ have fantastic chemistry, though,” Dave says thoughtfully, staring at the television.)

Eventually, the movie ends, and Klaus realizes Dave missed it because he fell asleep. He looks at Dave, then frowns.

“What’s sleeping like?” he asks Five. “I can’t remember.”

“Uh,” Five says, looking caught off-guard. “It’s….sort of like falling into blackness, except you don’t remember anything else until you’re waking up.”

“Like dying?” Klaus says in alarm.

“Not…. _exactly_ like that….” Five hedges.

“That’s exactly like dying,” Klaus says.

“It kind of is,” Ben says thoughtfully.

Klaus bites his lip. He doesn’t like the idea that Dave knows what dying is like.

“But it doesn’t hurt,” Ben says, catching the expression on his face. “It doesn’t hurt at all, Klaus, promise.”

“Pain wouldn’t let you sleep at all,” Five snorts.

“Don’t,” Ben warns.

Five blinks. “What?”

“If you’ve ever killed someone via sleep deprivation or sleep overdose or sleep _whatever_ neither of us want to hear it,” Ben says, crossing his arms.

“Why do you think I’ll always turn everything into talking about how I killed someone?” Five says. He sounds offended. And annoyed. “I have other topics of conversation.”

“Sure, like the apocalypse, and math, and time-travel, and Delores,” Ben shoots back. “You’re very well-rounded.”

Klaus tunes them out as they fall into another argument, and instead snuggles up to Dave’s side. Dave is warm as always, and he sighs contentedly.

There was a time - a long time, really - when Klaus thought that the Academy was the biggest his world could ever get. He can remember, vaguely, dreaming of the outside when he was alive and got a small taste whenever he went out with his siblings, but after dying his world shrank so much. Enough that imagining the Academy was the most he could think of, the furthest he could imagine his freedom extending.

It scares him, still. He doesn’t ever want to go back, because if he does he’s scared that he’ll go back to thinking like that, thinking Dad’s house is the furthest he can ever go. That he’ll lose the ability to cross the doorway leading back outside again.

Dave and Ben and Five and _all_ his other siblings have promised him he doesn’t have to go back, though. So he thinks he might be safe. He doesn’t know, he’s never really felt safe, but maybe this is it.

He sits with Dave for another hour or so, just reveling in the sensation of being _warm,_ idly listening to Five and Ben bicker.

Then the doorbell rings, and Klaus perks up. Dave mumbles as he wakes, and Five and Ben look over towards the door.

“They’re here,” Klaus says. He doesn’t bother saying who, because everyone knows. Klaus slides off the couch and goes to the door, because Dave needs a minute to wake up all the way. Sleep seems to be very clingy.

Klaus opens the door and looks up.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hey, Klaus,” Allison says. She’s getting better at this - she hardly winces when she sees him at _all._

“Come in,” Klaus says politely. Dave has been teaching him about politeness. Most of it sounds stupid but he can at least try it, sometimes. Dave smiles when he does.

His siblings come inside, looking around. Allison and Luther are holding hands. Klaus isn’t sure why, but they’ve always been close, so it’s probably a them thing. He knows they’re going back to L.A. together in the morning. Ben looked kind of weird when they found that out, but he didn’t answer when Klaus asked why. Really, though, his siblings look weird and don’t answer whenever a lot of things come up these days, like why Five came back from spying one day and _demanded_ that Klaus _immediately_ tell their living siblings to break into Vanya’s boyfriend’s house and look in the attic. Klaus didn’t even know Vanya _had_ a boyfriend. Although apparently she doesn’t anymore? But, as previously mentioned, no one will answer his questions about that, so it’s probably not that important.

Diego and Vanya come in next, and even if they don’t look totally comfortable around each other still it’s a lot better than how Ben described them on the day of Dad’s funeral. Klaus likes that, his family getting along. It’s so rare.

Dave comes out to greet them, and they all say hi. They all act kind of awkward around Dave, which is confusing because Dave is the best person in the world, but Klaus puts that down to inexplicable grownup things.

A lot of things are inexplicable grownup things. Klaus has wondered about them a lot, because more and more of them seem to be popping up every day, but he probably won’t ever know the answer. He’s going to be a kid forever.

(It’s not something he likes to think about. Five brought it up and Klaus threw a tantrum a few days ago, which made it so Five promised not to mention it again, but that doesn’t make it go _away._ Klaus isn’t going to grow up, and that’s….that’s just how it is.)

His siblings come in and look at the house, commenting and moving around. They talk to Ben and Five through Klaus a lot, and sometimes to Klaus too. He doesn’t mind. He has Dave, and Dave likes him for him, not just because he can talk to his dead brothers.

Allison picks up the movie they watched and makes a noise. “Oh, I like this one. Fond of the classics, Dave?”

“Actually, that was Klaus’ pick,” Dave says. “He likes the old black and whites as much as I do.”

“Really?” Allison says. She looks at Klaus and smiles. Just a little bit, but she does. “What do you like about it?”

“They remind me of something,” Klaus says. He doesn’t realize it’s true until he says it, and he blinks.

“Oh?” Allison says. “What do they remind you of?”

“....I don’t remember,” Klaus says slowly.

Allison snorts a little, putting the movie back. “Alright then. Well, tell me if you ever do.”

She goes off to talk with Vanya again, and Klaus is left frowning in her wake.

“You don’t remember?” Ben says curiously, lounging on the chair nearby.

“No,” Klaus says. He bites his lip. “I should remember. It’s important.”

“You don’t have to strain yourself, Klaus,” Bens says soothingly. “It’s just one little thing. I know you don’t like it, but you have to give it time to all come back. You’re missing - well, God knows how much you lost.”

“She does,” Klaus says without thinking.

“Hm?” Ben says.

Klaus blinks.

Then he shakes his head, and looks back at his siblings, at Dave. His family.

“....Later,” Klaus says. “I’ll figure it out later. I’ll remember later. Right now I want a hug.”

“Then go get one,” Ben says, eyes soft.

And so he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus, babie zombie Klaus has his well-deserved happy ending! Which, btw, the end does mean that god knows how to release his zombieness and she will probably deign to inform him sometime in the far-distant future, so put that fridge horror away. There is only fluff allowed in this house.
> 
> Thank you very much for sticking with me for so long, I had a blast seeing you all enjoy this fic so much! Much love to you all!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["Can I come out now?"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25353739) by [Anglophile_Rin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anglophile_Rin/pseuds/Anglophile_Rin)
  * [.death becomes him.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24832834) by [ObliqueOptimism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliqueOptimism/pseuds/ObliqueOptimism)




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